THE  SECRET  OF 
THE  OLD  MASTERS 


THE  SECRET  OF 
THE  OLD  MASTERS 

By 
ALBERT  ABENDSCHEIN 


D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 

NEW   YORK 

1909 


COPYRIGHT,  1906,  BY 
D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


PuWshed  November,  1906 


PEEFACE 


IN  this  little  book  I  have  undertaken  to  lay 
before  the  reader  the  fruits  of  the  labor  of 
twenty-five  years.  As  soon  as  I  could  under- 
stand and  appreciate  the  splendors  of  the 
Grand  Masters  of  painting,  I  had  begun  to 
form  a  determination  to  discover  the  techni- 
cal principles,  methods,  and  material  that  en- 
abled the  Masters  to  produce  their  work. 
Years  ago,  I  never  had  any  real  satisfaction 
when  I  did  paint  a  fairly  good  study  head, 
because  I  felt  instinctively  that  it  was  in  no 
sense  related  to  the  technic  of  the  Masters. 
Therefore,  the  search  for  the  Masters'  technic 
became  for  me  an  all-absorbing  life  work  to 
the  exclusion  of  all  else.  This  life  work  was 
more  or  less  an  injury  and  loss  to  me  in  many 
ways.  On  the  other  hand  it  had  many 
v 


PREFACE 

compensating  pleasures.  I  had  said  to  my- 
self in  the  beginning:  "  If  I  can  only  paint 
one  head  with  the  Old  Masters'  technic  I 
shall  be  satisfied."  Had  I  known  how  long 
it  would  take  me  to  solve  the  problem,  I  cer- 
tainly would  not  have  attempted  it,  but  as  the 
years  passed  I  felt  less  like  giving  up  than 
I  might  have  at  the  beginning.  As  I  pro- 
ceeded on  my  way  in  the  search  I  met  many 
that  had  lost  themselves,  or  fallen  by  the 
wayside.  I  feel  now  that  I  ought  to  make 
public  my  theories  and  conclusions,  so  that 
the  younger  and  stronger  enthusiast  may 
make  fuller  use  of  my  discovery  of  the 
"  Masters'  Venetian  Secrets."  He  will  be 
better  armed  to  fight  his  battles,  hard  enough 
in  any  event  without  this  lifelong  technical 
thorn  in  his  side. 

The  Old  Masters'  technic  always  has  been 
enveloped  in  mystery  and  confusion.  I  think 
I  have  brought  some  order  out  of  the  con- 
fusion and  considerable  light  to  bear  upon 
the  mystery.  I  do  not  presume  to  tell  the 
vi 


PREFACE 

reader  how  he  shall  paint,  but  I  am  glad  to  be 
able  with  some  show  of  authority,  as  I  rest 
somewhat  spent  by  the  wayside,  to  point  out 
to  him  in  which  direction  the  Masters  have 
gone  over  the  horizon.  Should  anything  in 
this  book  bring  success,  lighten  labor,  make 
results  more  beautiful,  certain,  and  perma- 
nent, then  I  shall  not  have  labored  in  vain. 

A.  A. 


Vll 


CONTENTS 


I. — INTRODUCTION:  Decay  of  paintings,  artist 
blamable  for  decay — Technical  copies  of 
the  Masters 1 

II. — THE  MYSTERY:  Varnish  painting — Varnish 
and  wax  or  encaustic  painting — Resins 
or  gums — Copal — Turpentine,  spike  oil, 
and  benzin — Petroleum — Oil  .  .  .18 

III. — THE  THREE  OILS:  Oil  and  resin  or  magilp 
— Oil  alone  as  the  medium? — Canvas  or 
grounds  —  Modern  canvas  —  Absorbent 
canvas 36 

IV. — ABSORBENT  GROUND  VERSUS  NONABSORB- 
ENT:  Varnish  grounds — The  pure  white 
ground  with  the  veil  or  stain  ...  57 

V. — TEMPERA 67 

VI.— THE  "VENETIAN  SECRET":  "DEAD  COL- 
OR," or  FIRST  PAINTINO  FOR  FLESH  .  77 

VII. — THREE  COLORS:  Titian 90 

VIII. — TITIAN'S   PRINCIPLES   UNCHANGED:    Paul 

Veronese — Rubens  and  Van  Dyck          .   102 
ix 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

IX. — THE  METHOD  INVISIBLE:  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds—Turner— Etty        .        .       .       .117 

X. — THE  TRUE  MEDIUM  OR  VEHICLE        .       .134 

XI. — THE  EVIDENCE 151 

XII. — SUMMARY:  Colors  ......   162 

XIII. — DURABLE  COLORS:  Testing  colors       .       .177 

XIV. — RETOUCHING  AND  FINAL  VARNISH:  The 
white  palette — General  notes — Conclu- 
sion .  190 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE 
OLD  MASTERS 


CHAPTER   I 

INTRODUCTION 

IN  reference  to  the  Old  Master's  technic, 
in  his  book  the  "  Graphic  Arts,"  edition  of 
1886,  Hamerton  says:  "  It  is  wonderful  that 
so  little  should  be  known,  but  it  is  the  more 
wonderful  since  eyewitnesses  have  positively 
attempted  to  give  an  account  of  the  Venetian 
methods  and  stopped  short  before  their  tale 
was  fully  told,  and  that  neither  from  inabil- 
ity nor  unwillingness  to  tell  all,  but  simply 
because  they  did  not  foresee  what  we  should 
care  to  know  about,  or  else  took  it  for  granted 
that  we  should  be  inevitably  acquainted  with 
all  that  belonged  to  the  common  practice 
of  the  time."  Hamerton  thus  confesses  his 
1 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

lack  of  knowledge  on  a  subject  that  formed 
the  greater  part  of  his  book.  It  further  indi- 
cates the  general  knowledge  among  artists  in 
England  and  on  the  Continent  up  to  that 
time. 

In  January,  1891,  the  following  little  de- 
spairing note  came  to  a  New  York  paper 
from  Paris,  the  greatest  productive  center  of 
paintings  in  the  world:  "  The  members  of 
the  French  Society  of  Artists  are  pondering 
upon  a  proposed  abandonment  of  oil  colors 
and  brushes  in  favor  of  some  more  permanent 
mediums  of  preserving  their  works  for  pos- 
terity. Detaille,  Bouguereau,  Robert  Fleury, 
Vibert,  Saint-Pierre  form  a  committee  of 
investigation.  One  expert,  Gabriel  Deneux, 
proposes  a  system  of  encaustic  painting  by 
which  hot  irons  would  be  used  instead  of 
brushes.  The  work,  after  being  branded  in- 
stead of  painted,  would  have  to  be  treated 
chemically.  The  conservative  painters,  how- 
ever, hope  that  some  improvement  may  be 
attained  in  the  mixture  of  colors  in  which 
2 


INTRODUCTION 

such  a  radical  innovation  as  cautery  will  not 
be  resorted  to."  This  indicates  plainly  that 
the  hest-known  artists  and  teachers  in  Paris 
at  that  time  (1891)  were  somewhat  at  a 
loss  as  to  how  to  paint  soundly  or  durably. 
They  were  all  fine  artists  and  painters,  but 
they  were  aware  that  their  system  was  some- 
how not  that  of  the  Masters.  Then,  in  1893, 
Vibert  published  his  book,  "  La  Science  de 
la  Peinture,"  in  which  resin  with  petroleum 
is  announced  as  the  true  medium  for  painting 
(of  which  more  anon).  Again,  in  April,  1904, 
we  have  this  anent  some  work  exhibited  in  the 
Salon :  ' '  For  some  time  past,  X,  like  so 
many  of  the  greatest  living  painters,  has  been 
dissatisfied  with  modern  methods  of  tech- 
nic.  He  argues,  as  I  have  heard  other 
great  painters  argue,  that  the  art  of  painting 
has  been  lost;  that  while  the  artistic  instinct 
and  the  intellect  of  the  painter  are  just  as 
great  and  keen  as  ever,  he  is  no  longer  in  pos- 
session of  the  same  means  as  the  Old  Masters. 
He  does  not  prepare  his  canvas  in  the  same 
3 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

way,  nor  build  up  his  pictures  as  they  did. 
He  knows  well  enough  what  he  is  aiming  at, 
but  not  how  to  attain  the  end  by  methods 
which  are  at  once  solid,  masterly,  and  lasting. 
A  profound  study,  a  minute  technical  dissec- 
tion, as  it  were,  of  the  greatest  works  at  the 
Louvre,  have  revealed  secrets  to  X  which  have 
made  him  the  pioneer  of  the  most  brilliant 
modern  retreat  to  the  ideals  of  painting  pur- 
sued by  such  giants  as  Rubens,  Velasquez,  and 
Franz  Hals.  .  .  .  The  actual  painting  is  that 
of  the  Old  Masters  ...  a  thin  '  jus  de  cou- 
leur '  over  an  elaborately  developed  '  grisaille. ' 
.  .  .  But  Rubens  has  merely  guided  X  's  brush. 
There  is  no  slavish  imitation  in  the  young 
French  master's  work."  These  quotations 
can  give  but  a  faint  hint  of  the  number  of 
men  who  have  knocked  on  the  door  of  the 
Old  Masters'  painting  room  to  be  admitted 
to  their  technical  secrets.  Through  the  cen- 
turies there  have  been  a  few  admitted,  hardly 
more  than  a  dozen  perhaps.  And  so  every 
earnest  art  student,  if  the  Old  Masters'  great 
4 


INTRODUCTION 

work  has  any  influence  on  him  whatever,  in 
time  is  confronted  with  the  problems  purely 
of  technic,  apart  from  the  problems  of  draw- 
ing, painting,  and  composition.  The  selec- 
tion and  use  of  colors,  logical  methods,  me- 
diums, varnishes,  and  grounds  to  paint  on 
remain  perplexing  questions  even  to  eminent 
artists,  as  we  have  seen.  Considering  the 
enormous  amount  of  painting  done  it  is  amaz- 
ing that  so  little  is  known  on  this  subject. 
Drawing,  painting,  and  composition  are,  in 
modern  times,  freely  taught  in  many  coun- 
tries, but  I  have  never  heard  of  the  real  tech- 
nic of  oil  painting  being  taught  anywhere. 
Every  student  and  artist  picks  up  his  knowl- 
edge about  the  technic  of  his  art  wherever 
and  however  he  can.  It  is  mostly  chance, 
guesswork,  a  friendly  hint  and  some  experi- 
ence that  finally  weds  him  to  some  manner  of 
painting,  some  favored  colors,  and  some  fav- 
ored canvas.  It  is  only  within  a  few  years 
that  the  quality  and  durability  of  colors  has 
become  generally  questioned,  and  some  dis- 
5 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

crimination  in  their  use  become  evident  on 
the  part  of  artists.  Still,  this  discrimination 
has  not  advanced  much  beyond  the  accept- 
ance of  the  ochres  and  the  rejection  of  aniline 
colors,  most  artists  knowing  enough  not  to 
use  them  when  they  know  them  to  be  such. 
Every  new  and  loudly  heralded  make  of 
material  is  hopefully  taken  up  and  tried,  and 
as  sadly  laid  away  again,  while  the  same  old 
feeling  of  uncertainty  and  perplexity  re- 
mains. If  any  artists  have  hit  upon  what 
they  considered  the  real  and  only  technic, 
they  have,  like  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  kept  it 
carefully  secret.  I  once  asked  a  friend  in 
Munich,  who  had  many  years  of  experience 
in  painting,  what  medium  or  vehicle  he  used 
to  dilute  the  colors  on  the  palette,  and  he 
said,  "  balsam  copaiba,  spike  oil,  with  a  little 
wax  melted  in,"  adding  the  usual  injunction, 
"  don't  tell  anyone."  I  thought  at  the  time 
the  injunction  showed  a  narrow  spirit — I  had 
heard  it  before,  and  have  often  since,  but 
when  I  found  by  my  own  experience  that  it 
6 


INTRODUCTION 

took  a  great  deal  of  time  and  study  to  invent 
useful  and  beneficent  things,  I  became  some- 
what reconciled  to  the  idea. 

The  one  distressing  thing  about  my  search 
for  the  true  technic  of  oil  painting  was,  that 
even  with  an  exhaustive  amount  of  experi- 
menting and  with  notebooks,  it  was  impossi- 
ble to  come  to  any  positive  conclusion  without 
the  necessary  lapse  of  considerable  time. 
And  if  the  reader  will  have  the  patience  to 
follow  me  through  this  little  book,  I  hope  to 
prove  to  him  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt 
that  the  conclusions  I  have  arrived  at  are 
the  only  logical  ones,  and  that  the  principles 
of  the  process  described  are  those  of  the 
"  Grand  Old  Masters  "  and  no  others!  I 
am  very  well  aware  that  many  more  or  less 
eminent  men  have  in  the  last  three  and  a  half 
centuries  sought  for  and  claimed  to  have  dis- 
covered this  precious  process;  that  many 
theories  other  than  the  ones  herein  contained 
have  been  advanced  by  able  artists.  Their 
theories  have  been  for  a  time,  to  a  great  ex- 
2  7 


THE  SECRET   OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

tent,  accepted,  but  in  no  case  have  such 
theories  been  sustained  by  any  conclusive 
evidence,  proof,  or  facts  that  could  be  ac- 
cepted by  any  logical  mind.  The  theories 
were  all  more  or  less  built  up  on  dogmatic 
assertions.  Some  inspiration  like  the  petro- 
leum theory  would  be  seized,  and  an  attempt 
made  to  fit  it  in  with  practice.  It  would  be 
asserted  that  the  Venetians  painted  with 
petroleum,  because  a  vague  tradition  says 
Correggio  once  made  a  varnish  of  it!  The 
great  difficulties  in  the  search  lay  in  the 
strange  fact  that  an  artist  may  have  found 
a  part  of  the  principles  governing  the  true 
technic,  and  yet  not  know  it  positively  until 
he  had  proved  it,  and  by  elimination  dis- 
proved all  theories  that  came  in  conflict  with 
it.  This  in  course  of  time  even  necessitated 
going  over  the  same  ground,  and  many  times 
experimenting  around  a  circle  back  to  the 
starting  point,  and  in  my  case  has  covered  a 
period  of  twenty-five  years.  Many  times  I 
was  "  stuck/'  to  use  one  of  Thomas  A.  Ed- 
8 


INTRODUCTION 

ison's  expressions,  not  knowing  which  way  to 
turn  to  go  forward,  feeling  that  the  labor  of 
years  was  thrown  away.  Then  I  would  try 
to  dismiss  the  whole  subject  from  my  mind 
for  a  short  time,  to  find  at  the  end  that  a  new 
path  was  revealed  that  led  to  final  success. 
The  very  simplicity  of  the  problem  made  it 
so  baffling,  like  looking  for  an  elephant  where 
a  mouse  should  have  been  expected.  One  of 
the  great  stumbling-blocks  to  a  quick  solution 
of  the  problem  was  the  well-nigh  universally 
known  fact  among  artists  that  oil  in  a  picture 
darkens  and  yellows  it  to  the  verge  of  de- 
struction. No  one  seemed  to  be  able  or  will- 
ing to  give  any  help  or  advice.  Some  years 
ago  I  heard  one  prominent  artist  say  that 
"  experimenting  was  dangerous."  His  work 
painted  at  that  time  has  since  reached  the 
dark  yellow,  and  some  the  brown,  stage,  all 
its  former  charm  having  vanished.  Other 
capable  artists  when  questioned,  revealed  on 
this  subject  the  ignorance  and  innocence  of 
children.  I  even  knew  of  a  French  painter, 
9 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

a  former  "  Prix  de  Rome  "  pupil  painting  a 
picture  with  colors  mixed  with  vaseline !  But 
it  did  not  take  him  long  to  discover  how  unwise 
this  was,  for  his  work  never  dried,  and  had  to 
be  repainted.  And  of  other  painters  using 
equally  silly  material,  there  are  many.  Chem- 
ists have  been  appealed  to  from  time  to  time, 
but,  excepting  in  regard  to  a  few  colors,  have 
not  been  able  to  help  us  out.  The  cause  of  this 
was  not  far  to  seek,  since  they  were  not  artists 
and  could  not  know  or  understand  our  wants ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  artists  did  not  seem 
to  solve  the  problem  either. 

Without  going  into  the  history  of  oil  paint- 
ing here,  let  us  ask,  What  is  the  logical  course 
to  follow  in  establishing  true  oil-painting  prin- 
ciples ?  It  is  obvious  that  the  best  and  oldest 
we  know  of  in  oil  painting  must  be  the  sub- 
ject of  our  investigations  and  should  guide  us, 
and  that  best  must  have  stood  the  test  of  time, 
not  of  fifty  or  one  hundred  years,  but  of  cen- 
turies ;  the  older  the  better,  provided  the  tech- 
nic  is  also  combined  with  excellent  drawing 
10 


INTRODUCTION 

and  fine  coloring.  Therefore,  as  we  look  back 
in  the  dim  past,  the  works  of  the  Grand  Old 
Masters — Titian,  Paul  Veronese,  Velasquez, 
Rubens,  Van  Dyck,  Reynolds — must  be  the 
source  to  which  we  must  travel  to  gain  knowl- 
edge. There  are  a  few  others  who  belong  to 
this  grand  company,  but  only  those  will  be  re- 
ferred to  who  will  best  serve  our  present  pur- 
pose. Now  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  most 
of  those  men  during  their  lives  had  two  or 
more  ways  of  painting,  a  fact  apparent  even  to 
the  unprofessional  eye  of  the  art  historians. 
Even  the  Masters  had  to  go  through  a  period 
of  evolution.  We  must  choose  that  which  is 
of  undoubted  authenticity  and  has  necessarily 
stood  the  test  of  time.  This  means  that  it 
was  interesting  and  attractive  enough  to  have 
escaped  the  attic,  museum  cellar,  or  scrap 
heap,  and,  last  and  most  important  reason  for 
our  purpose,  stood  the  test  of  atmospheric 
changes — light  and  darkness,  removal  from 
place  to  place,  revarnishings,  etc.;  and  fur- 
ther, its  very  existence  proving  that  at  its 
11 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

birth  each  work  had  a  sound  physical  con- 
stitution. 

The  causes  of  decay  of  oil  paintings  are 

very  numerous.    Many  are  foredoomed  to  early 

decay  before  they  leave  the  artist 's  easel, 

Decay  of       because,  although  the  artist  may  have 
Paintings 

been  a  great  artist,  he  may  not  have 

been  an  equally  great  craftsman,  and  exer- 
cised the  wisdom  and  care  necessary  for  the 
production  of  great  and  lasting  work.  Some 
modern  painters  have  affected  to  despise  any 
discrimination  in  the  selection  of  materials  and 
method  as  being  inartistic  and  beneath  them. 
And  when  artists  do  seek  for  light  on  technical 
matters,  they  soon  find,  as  did  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  that  there  is  no  one  who  can  teach 
them,  and  so  they  go  a  short  and  uncertain 
distance  in  what  seems  an  endless  and  un- 
certain path  of  experimenting.  They  soon  sat- 
isfy themselves  with  one  or  two  formulas  that 
seem  to  work  well,  and  with  that  they  are  apt 
to  remain  content,  and  keep  on  producing 
paintings  attractive  enough  at  the  time  they 
12 


INTRODUCTION 

leave  the  easel,  but  soon  becoming  uninterest- 
ing, and  forming  part  of  that  great  procession 
going  ' '  down  and  out. ' ' 

Some  of  the  causes  of  decay  in  paintings  for 
which  the  artist  can  be  blamed  are,  first,  an 

unsound  canvas  ground,  one  improperly 
Artist 
Blamable       made.     On  such  a  canvas  the  greatest 

r  ecay  genjus's  W0rk  is  bound  soon  to  yellow, 
blacken,  crack  or  peel  off  from  the  ground  and 
from  the  threads.  Without  mentioning  a  poor 
quality  of  linen,  the  principal  cause  of  the 
ground  peeling  from  the  linen  threads  is  in- 
ferior glue  or  improper  application  thereof  to 
the  linen.  Upon  decomposition  this  causes  the 
peeling  off  of  the  ground,  exposing  the  threads. 
Next  the  ground  itself,  the  surface  the  artist 
puts  his  work  on,  may  lack  every  essential  of 
permanence  or  even  of  logical  use.  (On  this 
subject  of  grounds  I  will  have  more  to  say 
later.)  The  Old  Masters  were  in  this,  not  only 
logical,  but  scientific  as  well,  nothing  being 
left  to  chance  or  haphazard.  Method  and 
order  were  instinctive,  and  the  phrase  "  any 
13 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

old  thing  is  good  enough  to  paint  on, ' '  so  fre- 
quently heard  from  modern  artists,  would  to 
them  have  been  a  species  of  artistic  heresy,  a 
ground  being  to  them  fully  as  important  as 
the  painting  itself,  not  merely  from  the  view 
point  of  permanence,  but  as  a  factor  in  the 
completed  picture.  This  was  particularly  the 
case  with  Rubens,  the  greatest  of  all  technical 
painters,  and  his  equally  great  pupil,  Van 
Dyck.  When  we  leave  the  ground  to  consider 
causes  of  decay  or  deterioration,  we  enter  a 
boundless  field.  Let  me  enumerate  just  a  few. 
First,  insufficient  drying  of  first  sketches  or 
paintings,  and  the  same  for  second  or  any  suc- 
ceeding paintings.  I  will  show  later  how  im- 
portant this  appeared  to  the  Masters.  Second, 
absurd  mediums,  vehicles,  or  combinations  in 
which  there  could  be  no  chemical  union;  un- 
clean, stale  paints,  wax,  adulterations,  dryers, 
magilps,  etc.,  were  all  a  fruitful  cause  of  dete- 
rioration. The  commonest  of  all  causes  of  de- 
terioration is  a  medium  made  up  of  two,  three, 
and  even  four  or  more  different  materials, 


INTRODUCTION 

where  one  of  them  is  sure  to  destroy  the  effect 
intended,  in  time,  and  if  the  other  two  or  three 
should  in  themselves  carry  no  injurious  con- 
sequences, their  combination  is  sure  to  bring 
about  final  destruction.  And  furthermore, 
the  immediate  effect  with  such  combinations 
is  rather  attractive,  and  so  such  pernicious 
concoctions  make  lifelong  slaves  of  some  art- 
ists, and  they  never  get  out  of  the  habit  of 
using  them.  During  a  period  of  more  than 
twenty-five  years  I  have  experimented  with 
very  many  of  them,  and  it  would  not  serve 
any  good  purpose  to  go  over  them  all  here. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  artist  is  to  blame  in 
nearly  all  cases  for  the  darkening,  excessive 
yellowing,  cracking,  peeling,  and  premature 
decay  of  his  painting.  Owners  of  fine  oil 
paintings,  as  a  rule,  take  tolerably  good  care 
of  them,  but  when  they  begin  to  darken  they 
are  apt  to  go  to  the  restorer,  or  even  the 
framemaker  (!),  and  to  have  them  clean  the 
painting,  which  means  a  kick  down  the  hill  for 
bad  ones,  and  a  start  downward  for  good  ones 
15 


that  may  have  only  a  little  ordinary  grime  on 
them  through  neglect.  There  are  few  artists 
who  prepare  their  own  canvas  and  grind  their 
own  colors.  The  paints  and  canvas  ordinarily 
used  are  at  the  present  time  made  by  large 
firms,  and  sold  as  other  merchandise.  This  is 
a  very  convenient  proceeding  for  the  modern 
artist,  but  it  produces  bad  pictures  in  most 
instances. 

The  Old  Masters  had  the  knowledge,  ex- 
perience, and  wisdom  to  produce  great  work, 

considered  from  every  standpoint,  and  it 
Technical 

Copies  of  is  necessary  in  establishing,  or  rather 
1  reestablishing,  a  sound  system  to  study 
their  work.  Many  great  artists  have  studied 
the  Old  Masters  for  technical  guidance,  and 
have  done  so  by  making  copies,  reproducing, 
not  the  aspect  alone,  but  the  method  and  the 
"  handling,"  ground  or  surface  on  which  the 
work  is  produced,  and  character  of  material 
throughout.  Thus  Velasquez  himself  copied 
Tintoretto  and  Paul  Veronese,  and  it  is  well 
known  that  Rubens  and  Van  Dyck,  as  well  as 
16 


INTRODUCTION 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  and  many  other  great 
and  lesser  artists,  have  made  many  copies  of 
Titian's  paintings  and  of  others  of  the  Vene- 
tian Masters.  Much  of  this  work  was  so  well 
done  that  it  now  passes  for  the  work  of  the 
painter  of  the  original,  and  sometimes  the 
original  is  regarded  as  the  copy,  as  happened 
to  Holbein's  Dresden  Madonna.  In  modern 
times  a  copy  is  condemned  without  a  hear- 
ing; in  the  old  days  a  copy  was  appreciated 
with  the  original,  if  it  was  equally  well  paint- 
ed. There  is  no  doubt  that  when  the  above- 
named  artists  copied  a  picture  it  was  done 
to  study  and  analyze  everything  there  was 
in  it — composition,  drawing,  color,  technic, 
ground,  method,  and  probably  medium.  We 
know  these  copies  were  sometimes  highly 
prized  by  the  artists  themselves. 


17 


CHAPTER   II 

THE   MYSTERY 

IN  copying  a  fine  Old  Master  in  a  good 
state  of  preservation  we  strike  at  the  outset 
mysterious  obstacles  if  we  attempt  to  make  a 
copy  by  using  the  modern  direct  method  of 
rendering  each  color  and  tone  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible at  the  first  touch.  By  mixing  any  colors, 
the  true,  or  even  approximate  tone  or  color, 
is  not  reproduced  with  equal  transparency  and 
luminosity.  The  obstacles  seem  almost  insur- 
mountable. One  of  the  first  things  encoun- 
tered is  a  transparency  and  wealth  of  color  to 
which  our  methods  and  material  seem  crude, 
heavy,  and  opaque.  At  once  the  thought 
would  occur  that  the  effect  in  their  pictures 
was  more  the  result  of  time,  but  that  is  the 
18 


THE  MYSTERY 

case  only  in  a  very  small  degree,  so  well  proved 
by  the  pictures  of  Rubens.  Some  of  them  in 
Munich  are  as  fresh  as  though  they  had  just 
been  painted.  This  is  also  the  case  with  the 
Van  Dycks  in  the  same  gallery.  This,  then, 
brings  us  face  to  face  with  an  unknown  quan- 
tity. Did  they  use  different  material  from 
that  in  use  at  the  present  day?  If  so,  what 
did  they  use?  The  "  glow  and  richness," 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  said  of  Rubens'  color- 
ing, "  is  that  of  a  bunch  of  flowers!  "  Was 
it  produced  by  varnish  and  luscious  magilp? 
Perhaps ;  why  not  ?  But  where  is  the  proof  ? 
Every  material  fact  should  be  susceptible  of 
proof  before  we  can  here  accept  it  as  an 
axiom  to  build  on  further.  But  as  my  Mu- 
nich instructor  used  to  say,  "  Gentlemen,  it  is 
difficult,  but  there  is  no  witchcraft  in  it,"  and 
to  solve  the  problem  I  proceeded  to  experi- 
ment in  varnish  alone  as  a  medium. 

Among  other  experiments,  I  painted  an  en- 
tire life-size  head  on  an  absorbent  ground, 
that  is,  zinc  white  and  size,  the  colors  and 
19 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD   MASTERS 

medium  being  without  a  drop  of  oil  in  the  en- 
tire picture,  and  solely  with  varnish !    If  any 

of  my  readers  have  struggled  through 
Varnish  .     .. 

Painting        a  similar  problem  they   can  afford  to 

smile.  The  transparency  obtained  was 
beautiful,  but  the  difficulties  were  tremen- 
dous, and  I  have  no  hesitation  in  condemn- 
ing the  process  as  not  that  of  the  Masters,  on 
the  ground  of  impracticability,  that  is  to  say, 
a  very  slow,  costly,  tedious,  and  extremely 
difficult  process.  I  felt  convinced  the  Mas- 
ters could  not  have  painted  thus,  because  for 
each  man  to  have  produced  as  much  as  he 
did,  he  would  have  had  to  be  reincarnated 
five  or  ten  times,  and  even  then  the  freedom 
of  their  work  would  have  been  in  this  method 
impossible. 

The  next  question  in  the  problem  was,  could 

it  be  some  other  varnish  1   After  more  experi- 

Varnish         menting  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that 

and  Wax,  or    ft       varnish  whatever  would  have  pre- 
Encauatic 

Painting        cisely    the    same    objections,    although 
slightly  differing  in  the  handling  on  account 
20 


THE  MYSTERY 

of  more  or  less  rapid  drying,  and  becoming 
gummy  and  sticky.  Then  I  tried  the  incorpo- 
ration of  wax  with  the  various  varnishes  to  re- 
tard the  drying  and  allow  some  freedom  in 
handling.  "Wax  with  Venetian  turpentine, 
wax  with  amber,  wax  with  mastic,  wax  with 
dammar,  wax  and  copal,  wax  and  balsam 
copaiba,  wax  and  oil  of  turpentine,  and  other 
varnishes  in  like  manner  in  very  many  vary- 
ing proportions,  and,  when  possible,  in  cold 
combinations,  that  is  to  say,  a  close  union  was 
obtained  when  possible  without  resorting  to 
heat.  Spike  oil  or  spirits  of  turpentine  were 
used  with  most  of  the  above  combinations 
more  or  less.  Wax  was  chosen  as  an  inert 
neutral  body  to  retard  rapid  oxidation  or 
evaporation,  and  on  account  of  its  transpar- 
ency when  used  in  a  comparatively  small 
quantity.  It  also  had  the  additional  ad- 
vantage of  eliminating  the  glassy  surface  of 
the  varnish.  The  wax  also  had  the  property  of 
giving  a  body  to  a  color  or  medium  without 
itself  imparting  any  noticeable  color.  All 
21 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

these  combinations,  be  it  understood,  were 
used  with  color  without  any  oil  whatever.  In 
due  time  I  found  that  if  the  proportion  of  wax 
was  large  enough  to  retard  the  varnish,  to  en- 
able a  modicum  of  deliberation  in  handling — 
as  in  ordinary  oil  painting — and  give  time  to 
draw,  color,  and  model  with  any  degree  of 
accuracy,  the  paint,  although  the  effects  were 
sometimes  beautiful  beyond  anything  possible 
with  oil  color,  was  entirely  unsuitable  for  first 
use  on  the  clean  canvas  and  for  intermediate 
layers.  It  would  often  remain  in  a  semi-dry 
state  for  days  and  days.  And  with  the  appli- 
cation of  heat  to  force  the  drying,  the  results 
were  apt  to  be  startling.  Either  the  varnish 
sank  down  with  the  color,  and  even  shifted, 
or  the  wax  arose  to  the  surface,  giving  its  semi- 
dull  sheen,  and  producing  a  spotty  surface. 
Then  again  the  varnish  arose  to  the  top  and 
gave  a  disagreeable  glassy  surface.  It  was 
almost  impossible  to  proceed  when  body  colors 
and  white  were  necessary,  not  to  mention  a 
decidedly  pronounced  tendency  for  the  paint- 
22 


THE  MYSTERY 

ing  to  become  quite  yellow  and  darker  all  over, 
and  the  fine  delicate  gray,  violet,  and  pearl 
carnations  to  lose  their  original  beauty  in  a 
very  short  time. 

All  this  proved  that  the  Masters  did  not 
paint  their  pictures  with  pigment  and  medium 
composed  solely  of  color  substance  mixed  with 
varnish.  Some  of  the  effects  obtained,  name- 
ly, those  with  the  Venice  turpentine  and  wax, 
were  very  beautiful  for  final  paintings,  glaz- 
ings, or  semi-veilings  of  flesh  tones,  such  as 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  was  so  fond  of  producing 
with  the  same  material.  It  was  charming, 
but  alas !  the  effect  or  aspect  would  not  remain 
as  painted,  and  in  a  comparatively  short  time 
become  yellow,  darkened,  cracked,  and  other- 
wise deteriorated.  In  the  above  tests  I  had 
added  more  or  less  spirits  of  turpentine 
as  a  diluent  or  solvent  and  then,  when  a 
slower  evaporating  one  was  necessary,  the 
turpentine  was  replaced  by  spike  oil.  Even 
then  the  "  drying  "  that  took  place  on  the 
palette  and  brush  was  so  rapid  that  there  was 
3  23 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

no  such  thing  as  free  and  deliberate  paint- 
ing with  its  attractions  as  observed  in  the 
Masters '  works.  Beautiful  chance  effects,  were 
of  course,  obtained,  but  if  an  attempt  was 
made  to  follow  nature,  as  in  a  portrait,  the 
time  required  to  find  a  correct  tone,  as  in  ordi- 
nary oil  painting,  was  necessarily  increased, 
and  the  handling  was  also  extremely  difficult. 
On  its  face,  the  Masters  had  no  such  difficul- 
ties to  contend  with.  Combinations  of  resins 
or  varnishes  with  wax,  mixed  with  colors, 
without  any  oil,  were  therefore  condemned  as 
not  feasible. 

I  then  proceeded  to  make  tests  with  these 

resins  and  wax  plus  the  colors  ground  in  a 

little  oil.     In  the  actual  handling  of  the 

various   resins   named    there    was   not 

or  Gums 

much  difference,  excepting  in  the  great- 
er or  less  elasticity  or  hardness  and  softness. 
Venice  turpentine  and  balsam  copaiba  are  the 
softer,  while  dammar,  mastic,  amber,  and  co- 
pal are  in  a  class  by  themselves,  though  still 
differing  much  from  each  other.  Speaking 
24 


THE  MYSTERY 

of  resins  from  an  artist's  standpoint,  one  of 
the  greatest  difficulties  in  connection  with 
resins  in  the  dry  state  is  the  total  lack  of  any 
standard  quality,  excepting  as  to  more  or  less 
mixture  of  foreign  matter,  the  clean  resins 
being  simply  selected  and  possibly  washed. 
If,  for  instance,  of  a  given  resin,  say  copal, 
a  package  of  selected  was  bought  one  day,  it 
was  quite  likely  to  be  very  different  in  its 
physical  properties  from  a  package  of  se- 
lected copal  bought  from  the  same  house 
six  months  later.  This  condition  of  affairs  I 
found  could  not  very  well  be  changed,  since 
the  largest  buyers  have  the  same  trouble,  and 
hence  the  "  deviltries  of  varnish  "  have  be- 
come one  of  the  expected  trials  of  the  making 
of  commercial  varnish  for  ordinary  purposes. 
The  only  way,  it  seemed  to  me,  was  to  get  the 
best  resin  possible  from  a  reliable  house  and 
make  the  varnish,  and  afterwards  subject  it 
to  the  required  test  to  ascertain  if  it  fulfilled 
all  the  artist's  demands,  viz.,  transparency, 
proper  drying,  "  remaining  inert  "  and  not 
25 


THE  SECRET   OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

contracting  violently  (so  that  the  paint  un- 
derneath, being  in  time  perhaps  a  trifle  less 
dry  and  in  a  softer  state,  should  not  be  torn 
apart  and  cracked),  and  last,  but  most  im- 
portant, its  durability  should  be  beyond  ques- 
tion. The  tendency  to  get  yellow  and  change 
in  color  I  found  was  strongest  in  the  more 
elastic  varnishes.  That  tendency  of  all  var- 
nishes to  darken,  I  had  come  to  believe  was 
caused  by  the  rapid  filming  over  but  slower 
drying,  and  especially  the  lack  of  thorough 
drying  "  au  fond."  Ordinarily  most  var- 
nishes will  dry  in  a  way,  but  only  on  the  sur- 
face, and  sometimes  the  warmth  of  the  finger 
placed  for  a  moment  on  the  surface  will  re- 
veal the  sticky  state  underneath,  which,  of 
course,  unless  it  is  a  final  varnish,  is  very  bad 
for  any  further  application  of  oil  colors  or 
varnish  colors  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of 
durability.  I  have  further  been  impressed 
with  the  fact  that  of  the  various  varnishes 
named,  one  was  more  valuable  to  the  artist 
than  the  others.  Mastic  when  first  used  is 
26 


THE  MYSTERY 

beautiful,  but  when  a  painting  needs  to  have 
its  varnish  removed  on  account  of  extreme 
yellowness  and  semi-opaque  state,  it  is  usually 
found  to  be  mastic.  Its  propensity  to  get 
quickly  yellow  and  deteriorate  is  undoubted. 
Before  its  volatile  part  evaporates  entirely  it 
becomes  yellow,  the  remainder  soon  loses  its 
cohesion,  and  very  minute  cracks  appear 
producing  opacity  and  discoloration.  These 
characteristics  are  common  also  to  most  other 
varnishes,  but  in  markedly  different  degrees. 
Dammar  will  remain  in  a  good  state  a  much 
longer  time  and  then  suddenly  begin  to  de- 
teriorate. Venice  turpentine  has  a  still  great- 
er measure  of  instability,  with  the  added  dis- 
advantage that  when  it  is  bought  in  the  open 
market  it  is  in  a  semi-fluid  state,  but  very 
thick,  slow-moving,  and  is  almost  always  sub- 
ject to  adulteration,  which  vitally  changes  its 
normal  character.  Amber  has  the  same  char- 
acteristics as  mastic,  and  is  somewhat  too 
viscous  and  glassy.  Balsam  copaiba  is  bought 
on  the  market  in  a  semi-fluid  state  similar  to 
27 


Venice  turpentine,  though  not  quite  so  thick, 
and  is  subject  to  adulterations  to  almost  the 
same  extent.  Its  propensity  to  become  yellow 
is  even  greater  than  mastic,  and  some  kinds 
have  a  strong  tendency  to  turn  yellow  on  ex- 
posure to  strong  light,  which  is  probably  due 
to  the  presence  of  acid,  and  is  a  very  serious 
fault. 

Of  all  the  resins  that  go  to  make  up  var- 
nishes, that  known  as  copal,  it  seems  to  me, 

offers  the  best  material  for  artists'  use. 
Oopal 

There  are  quite  a  variety  of  resins  un- 
der the  general  name  of  copal,  from  the 
very  hardest,  toughest  kind — which  has  almost 
a  metallic  ring  when  struck  in  the  dry  state, 
and  known  as  Zanzibar  copal — to  the  elastic 
and  at  the  same  time  tough  Sierra  Leone  co- 
pal. There  are  many  other  kinds  and  qual- 
ities, and  no  doubt  each  importation  varies 
somewhat  from  its  predecessors.  The  Sierra 
Leone  copal  of  the  very  best  kind  is  very 
scarce  and  much  the  highest  in  price.  It  is 
said  by  the  eminent  French  painter  Vibert,  in 
28 


THE  MYSTERY 

his  book  "  La  Science  de  la  Peinture,"  that 
real  copal  does  not  dissolve  in  anything  that 
will  not  destroy  it  unless  great  heat  is  used, 
and  then  the  very  high  temperature  necessary 
destroys  the  copal  and  leaves  only  an  ordinary 
resin,  which  no  longer  has  the  characteristics 
of  copal.  I  have  on  many  occasions  made  a 
fine  copal  varnish  by  placing  the  copal  gum 
in  alcohol  and  leaving  it  alone  until  such  time 
as  it  would  dissolve,  with  occasional  shaking 
and  placing  in  the  sunlight  to  accelerate 
the  dissolving  of  the  gum  or  resin.  This,  of 
course,  was  a  very  slow  progress,  as  in  the  first 
trial  of  this  method  it  took  over  a  year  to  dis- 
solve and  in  another  only  three  weeks,  but  in 
both  cases  the  varnish  was  quite  clear,  trans- 
parent, and  dried  very  well. 

The  essential  oils  of  turpentine  and  spike 
oil  are,  as  is  well  known,  a  prolific  source 

of  blackening  when  used  to  any  large 
Turpentine, 

Spike  oil,       extent  in  oil  painting,  especially  the  tur- 

and  Benzin  ,  •  mi  M          -i    • 

pentine.     The  spike  oil  is  very  rarely 
pure.     If  the  freshest,  newly  rectified  turpen- 
29 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

tine  be  used,  and  quickly  and  thoroughly  dried 
on  the  painting,  it  does  not  perceptibly  dark- 
en, but  as  soon  as  a  part  is  removed  from  the 
bottle,  that  which  remains  begins  to  thicken 
from  contact  with  the  air  in  the  bottle,  and 
then  its  further  utility  is  impaired,  viewed 
from  the  standpoint  of  durable  transparency. 
Benzin  may  be  classed  with  these,  but  it 
evaporates  too  rapidly  to  be  very  useful  ex- 
cept as  a  diluent  for  oil,  and  as  a  constituent 
of  some  varnishes. 

As  before   stated,  there  has  been  a  book 
written  by  J.  G.  Vibert,  the  noted  French 

painter  ("  La  Science  de  la  Peinture  "), 
Petroleum 

having  for  its  especial  object  the  intro- 
duction into  oil  painting  of  various  oils  pro- 
duced from  petroleum.  Colors  were  placed 
on  public  sale  some  years  ago  by  a  manufac- 
turer which  were  ground  in  petroleum  alone. 
The  colors  ground  in  petroleum  alone  cannot 
possibly  be  durable,  leaving  aside  a  question 
of  taste  as  to  their  use  from  a  purely  artistic 
standpoint  of  "  handling,"  and  action  under 
30 


THE  MYSTERY 

the  brush,  on  the  palette,  and  on  the  canvas. 
The  petroleum  in  time  is  sure  to  evaporate  or 
crawl,  and  sneak  away  in  its  well-known  man- 
ner, and  what  then  is  to  unite  and  hold  in 
place  the  particles  of  color?  M.  Vibert's 
theory  holds  that  the  color  should  be  ground 
in  as  little  oil  as  possible  and  then  diluted 
on  the  palette  with  what  he  terms  normal 
resin  dissolved  in  petroleum  of  a  certain  de- 
gree of  evaporation.  Now  there  are  in  com- 
merce some  varnishes  made  of  benzin,  naphtha, 
and  other  volatile  parts  of  petroleum  in  com- 
bination with  resins,  but  these  varnishes  are 
generally  intended  to  be  applied  in  one  broad, 
even  application,  and  when  an  addition  of  oil 
is  made  in  a  cold  state,  do  not  give  such  good 
wearing  results,  the  appearance  soon  becom- 
ing spotty  and  streaked.  The  normal  resin 
and  petroleum  of  Vibert  intended  to  be  used 
on  the  palette  with  the  brush,  every  artist  will 
admit  at  once  is  but  mixed  with  the  color  as 
it  suits  the  eye  of  the  artist,  and  no  rule  or 
theory  of  mixing  is  adhered  to.  Some  colors 
31 


may  be  applied  to  the  canvas  with  no  normal 
resin  petroleum  mixture  whatever,  while  some 
may  be  applied  with  a  very  large  percent- 
age of  the  Vibert  mixture.  It  follows  then 
that  a  very  uneven  and  I  may  say  accidental 
drying  takes  place;  the  parts  having  most 
normal  mixture  (if  I  may  be  allowed  the  ex- 
pression, with  all  due  respect  to  M.  Vibert) 
will  in  time  be  subjected  to  the  largest  per- 
centage of  evaporation.  If  the  mixture  is 
such  as  to  permit  perfect  freedom  in  han- 
dling or  brush  work,  or,  as  he  says  of  similar 
action  on  the  palette,  to  oil  itself,  the  propor- 
tion of  evaporation  is  materially  enhanced. 
Here  then  we  have  a  picture  whose  surface 
is  made  up  of  resin  and  oil  in  some  parts  and 
oil  alone  in  others.  The  drying  or  hardening 
can  proceed  in  anything  but  a  normal  manner ; 
the  parts  of  resin  and  oil  will  be  more  yellow 
and  less  durable  in  time  than  the  part  hav- 
ing a  small  quantity  of  oil  alone.  This  dif- 
ference, however,  would  not  be  so  serious  if 
it  were  not  a  question  of  durability,  for  the 
32 


THE  MYSTERY 

resin  dries  out  and  loses  its  cohesion,  especially 
if  it  has  been  previously  dissolved  in  some 
form  of  petroleum. 

From  my  own  experience  alone,  a  pure 
turpentine  varnish  is  worthless,  since  as  the 
turpentine  evaporates  it  loses  its  elasticity, 
and  with  the  loss  of  elasticity  there  ensues  an 
increase  of  evaporation  caused  by  the  separa- 
tion of  the  particles  and  producing  minute 
cracks,  one  effect  causing  the  other,  with  a 
final  total  disintegration  of  the  resin.  But, 
nevertheless,  turpentine  has  a  far  greater 
binding  power  than  petroleum,  for  it  is  itself 
a  poor  quality  of  resin  in  a  liquid  state.  So 
what  can  we  expect  from  a  medium  whose 
binder  is  petroleum?  I  will  answer,  if  the 
oil  has  been  displaced  to  any  appreciable  ex- 
tent, the  destruction  is  inevitable ! 

In  a  recent  New  York  paper  appeared  the 
following  significant  item :  "  M.  Vibert  has 
been  an  earnest  student  of  the  technical  scien- 
tific side  of  painting,  especially  concerning 
the  question  of  permanency  in  colors.  For 
33 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

years  he  was  the  leading  member  of  the  com- 
mission which  had  charge  of  the  restoration 
of  art  works  in  the  national  museums  of 
France,  and  he  gave  a  famous  series  of  lec- 
tures at  the  Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts  upon  the 
chemistry  of  colors.  His  manual  upon  the 
science  of  painting  is  recognized  in  French 
studios  as  an  authority.  It  would  be  sad, 
indeed,  should  Vibert's  cardinals  ever  lose 
their  gorgeousness,  and  it  may  comfort  their 
present  owners  to  know  that  the  artist  con- 
sidered them  good  for  at  least  a  century, 
whereas  he  believed,  '  that  many  pictures  of 
the  present  day  will  fade  into  insignificance 
before  they  are  fifty  years  old.'  ' 

The  next  step  in  the  search  for  a  true 
vehicle  and  medium,  after  the  condemnation 

of  the  wax  and  resins  and  the  rejec- 
on 

tion  of  the  petroleum  combinations,  was 

the  retention  of  the  resinous  principle  and 
the  substitution  of  some  substance  to  take  the 
place  of  wax.  The  very  obvious  freedom  of 
the  brush  in  the  work  of  the  Masters  forced 
34 


the  conclusion  that  their  mediums  must  have 
contained  some  substance  at  once  soft  and 
oily  during  the  handling  and  work;  hard, 
tough,  and  transparent  after  good  thorough 
drying,  and,  above  all,  moisture-resisting  and 
very  durable.  Though  fully  aware  of  the 
bad  reputation  of  oil,  I  took  up  a  series  of 
experiments  with  the  hope  of  effecting  a 
combination  that  would  neutralize  its  injuri- 
ous character. 

The  first  mixture  is  naturally  oil  with  some 
resin  or  varnish. 


35 


CHAPTER   III 

THE  THREE   OILS 

WHILE  on  the  subject  of  oil  it  may  be 
useful  to  note  some  of  the  constituents  and 
character  of  the  oils  used  generally  by  artists, 
as  ascertained  by  the  noted  German  chemist, 
Pettenkofer.  Without  entering  into  the  chem- 
ical details,  in  a  general  way  it  may  be  stated 
that  of  the  three  oils — linseed,  poppy,  and  nut 
oil — linseed  contains  a  higher  percentage  of 
the  "linolein"  or  real  working  and  durable 
part  of  the  oil.  The  proportion  of ' '  Hnolein  ' ' 
in  linseed  is  eighty  per  cent,  in  poppy  seventy- 
five,  in  nut  sixty-seven,  according  to  Petten- 
kofer. The  other  twenty,  twenty-five,  and 
thirty-three  per  cent  respectively  of  the  oil 
constituent  is  a  mucilaginous  substance,  and 
in  proportion  to  its  presence  in  quantity  is 
36 


THE  THREE  OILS 

deleterious  and  injurious.  It  produces  opaci- 
ty and  hinders  a  quick  drying.  In  my  judg- 
ment the  manner  in  which  the  oil  is  expressed 
from  the  seed  is  the  important  part.  If 
the  seed  is  pressed  too  hard,  as  seems  to  be 
the  rule  nowadays  with  hydraulic  presses  of 
great  power,  the  ground  linseed  meal  being 
constantly  in  direct  contact  with  steam,  it 
is  not  surprising  that  the  undesirable  sub- 
stances are  expressed  with  the  oil.  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  old,  slow  Italian  process  is  the 
best,  where  each  artist  made  his  own  oil  from 
the  seed  by  a  slow  water  process  with  the  aid 
of  the  sun,  without  steam  or  pressure,  and 
without  the  mixture  of  injurious  chemicals. 
This  is  the  safest  kind  of  oil  to  employ.  But 
if  pressure  must  be  resorted  to,  it  should  not 
be  so  excessive.  The  oil  itself  varies  in  the 
same  seed,  supposing  all  the  time  you  have 
the  best,  full-grown,  ripe  seed.  The  first  press- 
ings are  the  best.  The  difference  in  color  is 
the  only  thing  to  make  some  artists  favor 
poppy  oil  in  preference  to  linseed,  the  poppy 
37 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

oil  being  so  much  whiter  and  more  transpar- 
ent ;  but  in  this  case  things  are  not  what  they 
seem,  as  in  time  the  poppy  oil  gets  darker 
and  yellower.  In  comparison  to  linseed  and 
poppy  oil,  I  do  not  think  nut  oil  should  be 
used  when  either  of  the  former  can  be  had. 
The  choice  should  always  be  in  favor  of  lin- 
seed as  between  linseed  and  poppy,  because 
the  former  dries  throughout  better,  does  not 
increase  its  volume  to  the  extent  that  poppy 
does,  and,  lastly,  gives  a  less  viscous  surface. 
As  I  said  before,  the  next  step  in  the  search 
was  naturally  a  mixture  of  resin,  or  varnish, 

and  oil.     The  defects  involved  in  such 
Oil  and 

Resin,  or       mixtures,  applies  to  all  three  oils,  only 
increased  or  diminished  by  the  greater 
or  less   amount  of  mucilaginous   substances 
each  oil  contained,  so  I  will  refer  only  to  lin- 
seed oil  hereafter  when  oil  is  mentioned.     Oil, 
when  added  to  a  resin  and  used  as  a  medium 
or  vehicle  with  the  brush  on  the  palette,  does 
not  combine  and  form  one  homogeneous  sub- 
stance for  our  purpose  unless  subjected  to 
38 


THE  THREE  OILS 

boiling.  Then  our  oil  has  become  also  a  new 
kind  of  viscous  varnish.  Now  you  have  raw 
oil  in  your  colors  on  the  palette,  and  a  varnish 
to  spread  or  dilute  them  with,  but  the  oil  in 
the  color  not  having  been  boiled  remains 
apart,  and  the  varnish  remains  by  itself.  On 
the  picture  the  varnish  dries  on  the  surface, 
and  your  oil,  undried,  remains  underneath  and 
becomes  very  yellow  and  dark.  I  have  some 
tests  of  this  kind,  over  fifteen  years  old — 
where  the  combination  was  of  resins  and  oils 
without  any  coloring  matter  added  to  compli- 
cate the  process  of  drying — that  have  turned 
as  dark  as  raw  sienna  with  some  asphaltum 
added!  Just  think  of  it!  supposing  a  color 
tone  of  light,  tender,  silvery  carnation,  such  as 
we  find  in  the  nude  and  in  the  faces  of  women, 
were  mixed  with  this  medium.  What  would 
become  of  the  color,  I  will  leave  to  the  reader's 
imagination.  These  tests  were  mostly  made 
up  of  raw  oils  and  boiled  oils,  and  oils  thick- 
ened or  thinned  in  various  ways — oil  and 
mastic,  oil  and  dammar,  oil  and  amber,  oil 
*  39 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

and  copal,  oil  and  Venice  turpentine,  oil  and 
balsam  copaiba,  oil  and  other  resins. 

The  above-mentioned  mediums  were  in  ad- 
dition tested  in  conjunction  with  the  essential 
oil  of  turpentine,  benzin,  and  oil  of  spike, 
in  varying  quantities.  The  possible  propor- 
tions of  the  elemental  substances  are  almost 
unlimited,  as  I  discovered  with  the  simple 
combination  of  the  three,  oil  of  turpentine, 
wax,  and  Venice  turpentine.  Of  these  three 
I  had  made  a  great  many  combinations,  be- 
cause I  had  good  reason  to  believe  that  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  had  made  a  very  extensive 
use  of  them.  A  mixture  of  balsam  copaiba, 
amber  varnish,  linseed  oil,  and  turpentine 
had  been  recommended  to  me  at  one  time 
on  quite  respectable  authority,  but  it  did  not 
take  very  long  to  demonstrate  its  utter  worth- 
lessness,  and  the  childlike  credulity  and  inno- 
cence of  technical  knowledge  of  the  quite  ex- 
tensive circle  of  artists  who  made  constant 
use  of  it.  The  tests  were  always  made  on 
a  pure  white  canvas  made  by  myself,  whose 
40 


THE  THREE  OILS 

component  parts  I  could  rely  upon,  and  which 
had  been  previously  tested  as  to  stability  and 
purity.  The  tests  also  embraced  every  com- 
bination of  any  of  the  above-mentioned  in- 
gredients I  could  think  of,  but  I  soon  learned 
that  it  was  better  to  keep  the  number  of 
substances  as  few  as  possible,  so  that  their 
character  could  be  more  easily  noted,  and 
any  characteristics  increased  or  modified  as 
the  technical  brush  handling  demanded. 
When  I  thought  I  had  found  the  real  me- 
dium I  generally  painted  a  head,  and  some 
changed  color  so  rapidly  as  to  suggest  that 
they  were  ashamed  of  themselves.  One  pro- 
file head  of  a  lady  turned  out  so  well  in 
every  way  that  I  was  immensely  pleased,  but 
after  about  one  year  I  suspected  that  the 
study  was  becoming  yellow,  and  when  sus- 
picion afterwards  became  a  certainty  I  felt 
very  much  depressed.  Speaking  of  the  yel- 
lowing reminds  me  that  I  nearly  forgot  the 
substance  sometimes  used  by  some  artists  as 
a  quick-drying  varnish  which  turns  a  strong 
41 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD   MASTERS 

yellow  as  soon  as  anything  employed  in  paint- 
ing, and  that  is  the  white  of  egg.  No  more 
need  be  said  about  it.  All  the  mediums  thus 
far  mentioned  were  found  wanting  in  stabil- 
ity. That  is,  primarily,  in  not  retaining  their 
original  colorless  transparency  as  at  the  time 
when  first  applied,  and  turning  yellow  was  a 
very  common  serious  fault,  without  taking 
any  further  account  of  blackening. 

The  varnish  having  failed  us,  and  varnish 
with  other  ingredients,  we  must  turn  to  an  ex- 
haustive examination  of  our  old  friend, 
Oil  Alone 

as  the  oil   alone ;   that   is,  without  any   other 

substance  whatever  added.  It  is  quite 
generally  known  that  oil  alone  darkens  and 
yellows.  It  needed  no  very  extensive  tests  to 
make  that  a  certainty,  nevertheless,  I  under- 
took a  series  of  experiments  with  the  oils 
alone.  Tests  made  of  oil  as  supplied  by 
the  large  manufacturers  of  artists'  materials 
showed  that  no  matter  how  the  oil  may  have 
been  extracted  and  purified,  it  became  yellow 
and  dark.  I  then  procured  the  very  best 
42 


THE  THRBH  OILS 

raw  linseed  oil  to  be  had  in  New  York  City, 
and  purified  it  with  a  method  I  had  hit  upon 
while  in  Italy,  namely,  the  freezing  process. 
An  earthen  vessel  with  a  cover  was  nearly 
filled,  with  the  oil,  and  placed  outdoors  in 
winter,  in  some  sheltered  place,  and  at  inter- 
vals, when  snow  fell,  snow  was  added  to  the 
oil.  This  caused  the  fats  to  separate  from  the 
oil  and  sink  to  the  bottom  of  the  vessel,  fats 
that  in  the  first  place  should,  in  a  large  meas- 
ure, not  have  been  pressed  out  with  the  oil. 
The  oil,  of  course,  is  decanted  for  use,  and  I 
have  found  it  to  be  clear  and  very  limpid.  It 
seems  very  probable  the  same  results  could  be 
obtained  with  broken  ice  in  a  quicker  way, 
but  I  have  not  tried  it.  But  alas !  even  these 
precautions  did  not  prevent  the  oil  from  get- 
ting yellow  and  dark.  The  same  results  were 
obtained  when  the  oil  was  purified  by  water 
and  agitation,  in  both  cases  bleaching  in  the 
sun  not  preventing  the  oil  from  yellowing 
and  darkening.  I  tried  boiling  it  more  or  less, 
thickening  it  in  the  sun  with  litharge,  or  red 
43 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

lead,  and  also  thickening  it  in  the  sun  without 
any  substance  added.  Manganesed  oil  had 
the  same  effect.  All  these  tests  gave  more 
or  less  the  same  results,  a  complete  failure 
to  maintain  a  pure,  colorless  transparency. 
What  then  are  we  to  paint  with,  you  will  say. 
That  I  purpose  to  show  you  it  was  revealed 
to  me  in  the  various  stages  of  my  search,  and 
the  process  of  reasoning  that  led  to  the  final 
indisputable  triumphant  result. 

In  the  first  place,  a  canvas  or  panel  should 
be  grounded  absolutely  white,  not  only  because 
we  have  proof  that  the  great  technical 
Masters,  and  particularly  Rubens,  used 
a  pure  white  ground,  but  because  a  pure 
white   ground   is   an   absolute    necessity   to 
counteract  the  effects  of  time,  and  to  give  a 
painting  that  subdued  quality  of  light  which 
can  be  obtained  in  no  other  way ;  and  further, 
any  other  color  of  ground,  in  proportion  as 
it  deviates  from  pure  white,  is  a  positive  in- 
jury to  the  painting  placed  upon  it.     Whether 
the  paint  is  thick  or  thin,  if  proper  method 
44 


THE  THREE  OILS 

and  material  has  been  employed,  the  paint 
should  and  will  become  transparent,  and,  if 
anything,  the  effect  more  luminous.  French 
restorers  of  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth 
century  have  stated  that  while  the  work  of 
Frenchmen — like  Claude  Lorraine,  Blanchard, 
and  others  who  have  lived  and  worked  in  Italy 
— was  technically  constructed  on  the  same 
principles  as  the  work  of  the  Italian  Masters, 
there  was  a  great  difference  in  body.  They 
also  said  that  the  French  artists'  work  had  a 
lightness  and  delicacy,  that  the  canvas  ground 
was  too  thin,  that  this  combination  made 
the  work  lose  its  original  beauty  more  surely 
as  time  passed,  and  that  there  were  very  few 
Lorraines  that  had  not  had  the  need  of  a  re- 
storer's attention.  The  French  and  Italian 
restorers  have  privately  stated  that  of  all 
pictures,  those  apparently  done  with  the  Mas- 
ters' methods  were  the  most  difficult  to  re- 
store, and  that  to  match  a  tone  finely  on  a 
Lorraine  always  required  a  little  study  by 
itself.  From  this  it  would  seem  that  it  is 
45 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

wise  for  durability  to  have  as  a  foundation 
to  paint  on  as  thickly  primed  a  canvas  as  can 
be  made,  but  not  so  thick  that  it  will  crack  or 
not  stand  rolling,  and  also  have  the  under 
paintings  rather  heavy,  like  Titian ;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  if  there  is  a  heavy,  pure  white 
ground,  like  Eubens  invariably  used,  the  first 
and  subsequent  paintings  may  be  compara- 
tively thin  and  still  be  absolutely  durable, 
like  his  work  that  has  come  down  to  us. 
Turner's  landscapes  and  marines  have,  ac- 
cording to  my  personal  observation,  a  heavy 
first  ground  or  prime,  and  a  rather  heavy 
first  painting,  and  I  think  his  work  is  durable, 
but  ignorant  owners,  curators,  and  restorers 
are  helping  to  give  his  work  a  bad  repu- 
tation. 

The    canvas   supplied    to    artists    by    the 

modern  manufacturer  is  no  exception  to  the 

conditions  that  govern  the  manufacture 

Modern         and  sale  of  all  other  artists'  materials. 
Canvas 

The  conditions  of  the  commercial  side  of 
artists'  materials  are  mainly  due  to  the  artists' 
46 


THE  THREE  OILS 

ignorance  of  such  things.  The  dealers,  I  am 
convinced,  would  gladly  supply  what  was 
needed,  if  there  was  a  consistent  demand. 
They  often  undertake,  with  great  labor,  to 
supply  stuff  of  no  real  value  to  anybody  and 
a  great  injury  to  the  artists.  They  also,  I 
am  sure,  are  trying  to  get  their  supply  of 
material  of  as  fine  and  durable  a  standard 
as  possible,  but  primarily  from  a  business 
standpoint.  They  very  justly  say  it  is  not 
their  business  to  teach  the  artists  what  to  use, 
or  enforce  technical  morality  among  them. 
They  would  have  an  impossible  task  if  they 
tried.  They  are  in  business  to  supply  what- 
ever they  can  sell  at  a  profit.  The  only  delib- 
erate fraud  I  have  noticed  was  the  temptation 
to  sell  some  inferior  substance  as  the  best 
genuine  madder,  this  fraud  is  really  serious, 
since  the  tubes  are  quite  small,  and  it  is 
very  annoying  to  make  a  test  of  each  tube, 
but,  if  it  is  not  done,  the  color  in  the  picture 
is  liable  to  disappear.  The  canvas  generally 
supplied  by  manufacturers  is  far  from  white, 
47 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

and  only  in  very  rare  cases  does  it  even  ap- 
proach white,  and  if  you  ask  the  dealer  he 
will  tell  you  he  will  always  sell  more  of  that 
which  is  low  in  key  and  generally  of  a  gray 
tone,  one  reason  for  that  being  that  unless  an 
artist  is  familiar  with  the  pure  white  ground 
and  knows  how  to  handle  it,  it  is  very  trying 
to  the  eyes  until  covered,  and  also  necessi- 
tates a  thicker  paint  treatment  to  cover  the 
white — in  fact,  causes  an  annoyance  instead  of 
being  an  agreeable  inducement  to  color.  One 
great  colorist  I  knew  habitually  used  a  rather 
dark,  yellowish  canvas,  and  covered  that  with 
a  very  thin  "  veil  "  of  bone  brown  or  black 
and  "  siccatif  de  Courtrai."  So  a  beautiful 
study  head  he  had  given  me  has  been  grad- 
ually disappearing  in  dense  blackness,  and  a 
picture  of  his  in  a  public  gallery  has  lost  all 
its  beauty  of  color,  and  is  also  being  over- 
whelmed with  the  rising  tide  of  black,  pre- 
sumably from  the  same  causes.  An  artist 
rarely  asks  a  dealer  what  are  the  component 
parts  of  the  ground  of  this  canvas — in  fact,  I 
48 


THE  THBEE  OILS 

never  heard  of  a  case — and  if  he  did  ask,  he 
would  get  no  satisfactory  answer,  for  the  deal- 
ers do  not  know.  The  artist  invariably  ex- 
amines the  texture  and  tone  of  color;  beyond 
that  the  price,  only,  interests  him;  but  if  he 
were  told  this  canvas  is  the  very  worst  stuff 
his  precious  work  could  be  put  on,  he  would 
be  startled.  To  obtain  the  medium-yellowish, 
buff-colored  canvas  the  commonest  oils  and 
not  alone  impure  white  lead  are  used,  but 
chalk  or  whiting,  honey,  wax,  yolk  of  egg, 
glues,  coloring  substances,  clays,  ochres, 
earths,  etc.,  to  get  the  desired  low  tone,  to 
prevent  cracking,  and,  above  all,  to  reduce  the 
cost  of  labor  and  material.  Now  such  a  can- 
vas has  at  the  outset  no  luminosity  of  its 
own,  in  time  becomes  brownish  yellow,  and 
can  never  lend  any  light  and  life  to  a  paint- 
ing placed  on  it;  the  dull,  gray  kind  is  inju- 
rious for  the  same  reason. 

If  Rubens  had  placed  one  of  his  paintings 
on  a  dull,  gray  ground,  such  as  is  commonly 
used  to-day,  its  color  would  never  have  re- 
49 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

tained  its  original  brightness  and  harmony. 
It  would  have  become  dull  and  somber  in 
time.  Speaking  of  harmony  reminds  me  of 
how  a  well-known  European  artist  lost  the 
harmony  from  the  very  beautiful  pastel  heads 
he  had  a  happy  faculty  of  doing  on  gray  card- 
board grounds.  The  gray  was  a  very  fine  tone, 
neither  dead  nor  heavy,  and  the  pastels  were 
mostly  vignettes  of  beautiful  women's  heads, 
but  the  light  acting  on  the  acids  in  the  card- 
board changed  the  fine  gray  tone  and  substi- 
tuted a  buff  yellow  of  a  darker  shade,  so  that 
where  he  had  allowed  the  gray  tone  to  appear 
in  the  flesh  the  change  had  destroyed  all  the 
original  beauty  and  harmony,  and  a  great  pity 
it  was!  I  have  used  white  cardboard  and 
found  it  subject  to  even  more  change  to  yel- 
low, excepting  only  when  the  surface  was  first 
thickly  covered  so  as  to  prevent  light  from 
penetrating. 

Generally  speaking,  if  any  change  is  taking 
place  in  any  painting,  it  is  quite  sure  to  be 
toward  yellow,  brown,  and  darkness,  and  in 
50 


THE  THREE  OILS 

fact  a  real  "  yellow  peril  "  faces  the  artist 
unless  he  knows  how  to  avoid  it. 

Leaving  aside  the  lack  of  luminosity  in  the 
commercial  canvas  at  the  outset,  in  time  it 
grows  rapidly  darker  and  more  yellow  from 
the  cheap  materials  composing  it,  and  un- 
fortunately nearly  all  modern  artists  use  it. 
Most  painters,  alas !  care  not  what  to-morrow 
brings,  since  most  of  them  have  troubles 
enough  for  the  present  without  looking  for 
more.  The  impure  oils  and  other  deleterious 
ingredients  make  the  canvas  keep  better  for 
the  dealers ;  it  remains  more  pliable,  can  be 
kept  better  in  small  rolls  for  a  longer  time,  and 
is  thus  more  convenient  for  transportation. 
As  for  the  ground  itself  remaining  firmly  and 
permanently  attached  to  the  linen  threads, 
that  depends  upon  the  quality  of  the  glue 
used,  how  well  applied,  and  also  upon  the 
ingredients  of  the  ground  itself.  In  such  a 
case,  time  only  can  decide  the  question.  If, 
however,  an  artist  made  the  whole  canvas  him- 
self, as  the  Old  Masters  or  their  apprentices 
51 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

did,  he  would  know  very  well,  without  regard 
to  time. 

There  are  various  kinds  of  absorbent  canvas 
or  grounds,  and  consequently  not  all  neces- 
sarily exactly  alike  in  their  action  and 

Absorbent      resuits.     The  probable  cause  of  the  use 
Canvas 

of  absorbent  ground  dates  back  beyond 
the  tempera  days  of  painting  much  in  vogue 
before  the  discovery,  or  rather  more  extended 
use,  of  oil  for  picture  painting.  Its  adoption 
may  also  have  been  brought  about  because 
it  was  so  much  more  quickly  made.  To  make 
an  oil  ground  properly  demanded  much  more 
persistent  attention  and  labor,  extending  over 
considerable  time.  An  ordinary  absorbent 
chalk,  whiting,  or  "  gesso  "  ground  could 
be  well  made  throughout  in  twenty- four 
hours,  but  an  oil  ground  well  made  required 
an  indefinite  number  of  weeks  in  winter,  and 
not  less  than  three  or  four  weeks  in  good 
clear,  sunshiny  weather  in  summer.  In  short, 
the  difference  between  the  periods  requisite 
for  the  drying  of  oil  and  glue  water  respec- 
52 


THE  THREE  OILS 

tively.  This  may  have  caused  the  extended 
use  of  the  absorbent  ground.  The  essential 
difference  in  material  construction  was  that 
one  had  glue  or  casein  dissolved  in  water  as 
a  binder  for  the  chalk,  whiting,  zinc  white, 
etc.,  and  which  could  dry  well  in  a  warm  room 
in  twenty- four  hours  or  less;  the  other  had 
oil  as  a  binder,  and  white  lead  or  zinc  white 
as  the  luminous  body,  and  did  not  dry  well 
"  au  fond  "  for  a  long  time  if  applied  the 
least  bit  thickly,  and  the  surface  needed,  after 
each  layer  or  coat  was  thoroughly  dried,  to  be 
laboriously  scraped  or  rubbed  down.  Of  this 
manipulation  the  earliest  authentic  reference 
I  could  find  was  in  a  letter  of  Albrecht  Dii- 
rer's  to  a  friend  in  Niirnberg,  dated  Venice, 
January  6,  1506,  a  time  when  Titian  was 
twenty-nine  years  of  age,  and  his  contempo- 
rary in  that  little  city.  Diirer's  artistic  and 
social  position  in  Venice  at  that  time  was  a 
good  one.  He  was  publicly  commended  by 
Giovanni  Bellini  to  many  of  the  nobility — in- 
cluding the  Doge — and  the  patriarch  Aquilija 
53 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

called  on  him.  The  paragraph  in  the  letter 
follows  as  nearly  as  I  can  translate  the  old- 
style  German:  "  I  have  to  paint  a  panel  for 
the  Germans,  for  which  they  will  give  me 
one  hundred  and  ten  gulden  Rhenish,  with 
hardly  five  gulden  expenses.  I  will  get  the 
whitening  and  scraping  done  in  eight  days, 
then  I  will  immediately  begin  to  paint,  and  if 
God  wills,  a  month  after  Easter  I  will  have  it 
standing  on  the  altar."  Diirer,  it  seems,  did 
not  have  an  apprentice,  like  his  contempora- 
ries, but  that  may  be  accounted  for  because 
he  was  not  able  to  speak  Italian  fluently. 
"  En  passant,"  here  is  where,  if  an  artist 
made  his  own  canvas  ground,  as  he  should,  or 
at  least  supervised  its  construction,  the  old 
Venetian  system  of  art  apprenticeship  came 
in  very  "  handily." 

An  absorbent  ground  does  not  necessarily 
have  whiting  or  chalk  for  its  white  constituent. 
It  may  have  zinc  white  or  white  lead  or 
barium  sulphate,  but  with  the  manufacturing 
of  large  quantities  of  canvas  on  the  modern 
54 


THE  THREE  OILS 

plan,  the  question  of  cost  is  naturally  in  favor 
of  whiting.  This  question  of  cost  applies  even 
more  to  oil  grounds.  "When  a  canvas  ground 
is  made  of  oil  and  the  white  or  body  con- 
stituent is  in  whole  or  part  made  up  of  whit- 
ing, there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  alkali 
in  the  whiting  acts  on  the  oil  and  destroys  it ; 
hence  the  change  in  tone  and  color.  At  first 
such  canvas  is  more  salable  on  account  of 
the  discoloration  produced  by  mixing  oil  and 
whiting;  when  made  thicker,  this  substance 
is  commonly  called  "  putty  "  in  this  country. 
About  the  year  1800,  in  Paris,  the  first 
transfer  of  paintings  on  wood  was  made  to 
canvas,  and  was  undertaken  on  the  orders 
of  the  great  Napoleon.  One  was  that  of 
Raphael's  "  Madonna  del  Fuligno,"  supposed 
to  be  now  in  the  Vatican  at  Rome.  Hacquin, 
who  undertook  the  transfer,  was  supervised  by 
a  commission,  and  they  have  asserted  in  their 
report  that  the  ground  on  which  it  was  paint- 
ed was  a  white  glue  ground.  The  same  com- 
missioners had  in  charge  the  transportation 
5  55 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

from  Italy  to  Paris  of  Titian's  large  picture 
"  The  Martyrdom  of  St.  Peter  the  Domini- 
can, ' '  also  for  the  purpose  of  a  restoration.  It 
was  shipped  on  board  the  frigate  Favorite, 
and  before  it  reached  Marseilles  a  violent 
storm  was  the  cause  of  a  severe  soaking  to  the 
already  damaged  picture.  ' '  The  wet  wood  be- 
gan to  swell  and  the  glue  ground  lost  all  hold." 
Hacquin  made  the  transfer  to  canvas.  From 
this  it  seems  there  is  plenty  of  evidence  that 
at  least  the  wood  was  covered  with  a  layer  of 
glue,  even  if  the  ground  was  not  a  glue  ground 
entirely. 


56 


CHAPTER   IV 

ABSORBENT  GROUND  VERSUS  NONABSORBENT 

THE  subject  of  absorbent  ground  is  not  a 
simple  affair,  the  bad  reputation  of  oil  to  yel- 
low and  darken  having  doubtless  caused  many 
modern  artists  to  cling  to  this  straw  of  ab- 
sorbent ground.  I  said  straw,  but  barbed  wire 
would  be  a  better  term.  The  painters  prob- 
ably thought  that  if  they  could  get  the  oil  to 
hide  its  head  in  the  absorbent  ground,  like  the 
ostrich,  it  would  not  be  seen  or  found  out.  It 
is  a  fallacy  to  suppose  that  the  oil  is  harmless 
if  it  has  become  absorbed  in  the  ground ;  on  the 
contrary,  it  is  then  a  source  of  future  dis- 
coloration and  darkening.  It  is  a  serious 
mistake,  because  as  the  ground  is  constructed 
on  the  theory  that  the  oil  is  to  be  absorbed, 
there  is  necessarily  a  large  part  of  the  oil  im- 
57 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

mediately  absorbed  from  the  paint  as  it  is 
applied,  which  instantly  hampers  the  free 
movement  of  the  brush  and  brings  about  a 
confined  technic — in  fact,  no  technic  at  all,  but 
an  opaque,  dull  mess.  Some  painters,  to  over- 
come this  difficulty,  then  use  more  oil  or  other 
vehicle,  or,  as  I  have  seen  some  artists  do, 
apply  on  the  absorbent  surface,  before  any 
paint  whatever  is  used,  a  covering  of  pure  oil 
alone,  and  on  this  fresh  oily  surface  begin  to 
paint.  It  is  obvious  that  such  a  method  in- 
creases the  quantity  of  oil  present  in  the 
ground  and  in  the  painting  in  such  condition 
and  situation  as  will  surely  bring  about  yel- 
lowing, blackness,  and  a  dead,  heavy  aspect. 
Used  in  this  way  there  is  no  logic  in  the  use  of 
an  absorbent  ground;  the  thing  is  an  absurd- 
ity. On  the  other  hand,  there  are  two  other 
ways,  or  rather  one,  with  a  variation,  and  that 
is  to  cover  the  white  absorbent  ground  with  a 
thin  layer  of  quick-drying,  "  copal  "  var- 
nish, thus  making  it  practically  a  "  varnish 
ground,"  which,  when  well  hardened,  is  a 
58 


ABSORBENT  GROUND  VS.   NONABSORBENT 

much  better  surface  to  work  upon.  This  var- 
nish can  be  applied  thick  enough  to  have  a 
gloss  (a  matter  of  taste),  or  still  thin  enough 
to  leave,  after  drying,  a  tendency  to  absorb. 
If  made  sufficiently  thick  and  strong  and  prop- 
erly dried,  it  will  prevent  the  oil  from  being 
absorbed.  But,  you  will  say,  what  is  the  good 
of  having  an  absorbent  ground  that  does  not 
absorb  ?  Why,  this :  in  the  first  place  you  have 
a  white  ground  more  quickly  made,  although 
the  varnish  will  take  away  much  of  its  white- 
ness and  purity,  but  you  have  still  a  luminous 
ground  without  the  certainty  that  it  will  turn 
a  yellow  or  brown  from  the  presence  of  the 
oil  in  the  very  foundation,  and  the  assur- 
ance that  it  will  retain  its  tone  or  key  of  light. 
Another  way  to  treat  the  absorbent  ground 
is  to  apply  a  layer  of  glue  or  size,  and,  in 
proportion  to  its  quality,  covering  the  sur- 
face so  the  oil  cannot  enter  the  ground,  and 
so  making  it  convenient  to  paint  upon,  and 
making  an  increase  of  oil  or  medium  unneces- 
sary. This  latter  device  may  be  in  a  measure 
59 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

incorporated  into  the  original  ground  when 
making  it,  that  is,  increasing  the  proportion  of 
glue  or  casein;  but  if  not  made  exactly  right 
it  is  apt  to  cause  the  ground  to  crack  from 
the  slightest  jar  or  blow.  Personally,  I  prefer 
the  copal  varnish  covering  to  the  glue.  This 
subject  recalls  one  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 's 
memoranda  in  reference  to  chalk,  or  "  gesso," 
grounds:  "  Zuccarelli  says  that  Paulo  (Vero- 
nese) and  Tintoretto  painted  on  a  *  gess  ' 
ground.  He  does  not  think  Titian  did.  I  am 
firmly  convinced  they  all  did."  Zuccarelli 
was  a  contemporary  of  his  and  painted  land- 
scapes, and  Reynolds  was  using  "  gesso  " 
grounds  at  that  time.  But  Reynolds  soon 
after  began  using  a  ground  very  differently 
constituted,  and  this  brings  us  to  a  separate 
and  distinct  ground,  as  different  from  oil 
and  white  lead  as  oil  and  white  lead  is  from 
glue  and  zinc  white — a  resinous  or  varnish 
ground. 

Reynolds    sought    the    transparency    and 
color  charm  of  the  Masters  in  every  possible 
60 


ABSORBENT  GROUND  VS.  NONABSORBENT 

way,  and  among  many  strange  devices  he 
made  use  of  the  varnish  ground.  In  Rey- 
nolds's  private  diaries  we  find  two  memo- 
randa about  varnish  grounds,  one  in 
Grounds  reference  to  a  portrait  of  himself,  which 
reads,  after  a  brief  note  of  the  colors 
used,  "  the  cloth  varnished  first  with  copal 
var.  white  and  blue,  on  a  raw  cloth."  The 
word  blue,  it  seems,  was  afterwards  struck 
through  with  a  pen.  Other  technical  memo- 
randa of  his  referred  to  gray  grounds,  but 
this  one  was  white,  and,  most  important,  it 
was  made  of  copal  varnish  and  white. 
Nearly  all  his  life  he  had  been  trying  to 
get  along  without  oil,  and  that  extended 
even  to  the  ground.  Another  memorandum 
refers  to  a  ground  made  of  Venice  turpen- 
tine and  wax.  I  have  painted  on  quite  a 
variety  of  varnish  grounds,  and  among  them 
these  two  kinds.  The  Venice  turpentine 
and  wax  is  a  very  poor  example  of  ground, 
as  it  detaches  itself  very  easily  from  the 
threads  of  the  cloth.  As  soon  as  the  turpen- 
61 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

tine  dries  it  has  a  tendency  to  crumble  into  a 
powder,  not  to  mention  its  strong .  tendency 
to  get  a  very  exasperating  yellow.  The  copal 
is  better,  as  far  as  durability  is  concerned, 
but  it  will  also  yellow.  I  have  used  benzin 
and  dammar  with  zinc  white  and  paraffin. 
Also  alcohol,  copal,  and  zinc  white,  and  some 
other  combinations,  one  of  which  gives  prom- 
ise of  great  good  service;  but  as  sufficient 
time  has  not  elapsed  to  characterize  it  defi- 
nitely, suffice  it  to  say,  that  with  the  latter 
exception  they  have  a  tendency  to  yellow,  and 
their  durability  is  not  as  great  as  genuine 
pure  white  lead  oil  ground.  But  their  work- 
ing quality  is  superb;  as  the  grain  is  rough 
or  fine  the  charm  of  working  on  a  real  varnish 
ground  is  very  alluring ;  you  can  work  thin  or 
thick,  sketch  or  finish  highly.  The  freedom 
of  technic  and  brush  is  as  fine  as  it  can  be,  the 
paint  retains  its  even  tone  as  applied,  there 
is  no  spotting  and  opacity  alternating  with 
transparency,  and  it  can  be  made  so  that  it  is 
absorbent  (whoever  may  want  it)  by  reducing 
62 


ABSORBENT  GROUND  VS.  NONABSORBENT 

the  proportion  of  resin  in  the  material  that 
makes  up  the  ground. 

I  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  seen  a 
picture  of  the  Masters  that  led  me  to  believe 
it  had  that  dead,  dull,  lackluster,  nontrans- 
parent  look  to  the  surface  so  much  prized 
by  some  modern  painters,  who  take  special 
pains  to  bring  it  about;  and  in  all  my  re- 
searches I  have  never  seen  any  letter  or  de- 
scription of  any  notable  painting  by  the 
Masters  that  indicated  such  a  surface  was 
intended  by  the  artist.  I  do  not  wish  to  decry 
it,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  paint- 
ings in  our  museums  and  private  galleries  are 
heavy  with  varnish.  There  is  a  beautiful 
medium  between  both  extremes,  and,  excepting 
of  course  mural  decorations,  the  nearer  you 
get  to  the  dry  beauty  of  a  pastel,  the  less  you 
have  of  durability,  the  pastel  having  the  least 
durability  of  all  known  technics. 

The  term  white  ground,  as  here  used,  is  in- 
tended to  convey  the  idea  of  an  absolute  white, 
either  the  color  of  white  chalk,  or  the  color 
63 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

and  luminous  body  of  white  lead  or  zinc  white. 
The  principle  and  method  governing  its  use 

was  known  to  all  the  Old  Masters,  from 
The  Pure 

White  whom  it  has  come  down  to  us,  and  only 

e        modified   here   and  there  according  to 


Veil  or          their  individual  taste  and  personal  man- 
stain 

nerisms.    There  is  no  doubt  that  they  all 

used  a  white  ground,  or  their  work  would  not 
have  survived.  Of  all  the  Old  Masters  whose 
work  is  in  the  highest  key  and  shows  the 
brightest  colors,  that  of  Rubens  stands  out 
almost  alone.  His  work  is  technically  in  a 
class  by  itself,  and  although  all  the  others 
differ  as  to  their  individuality,  yet  their  work 
never  reaches  quite  that  high  key  of  luminous 
fresh  color.  This  effect  was  due  primarily  to 
the  absolutely  white  ground,  and  to  the  ex- 
treme care  Rubens  took  to  preserve  it  through 
all  stages  of  his  work  and  the  finished  picture. 
Most  of  the  other  Masters  used  it  with  the 
ultimate  object  of  giving  light  and  prevent- 
ing heaviness  as  time  dried  out  the  work. 
The  end  sought  was,  that  as  each  layer  be- 
64 


ABSORBENT  GROUND  VS.  NONABSORBENT 

came  more  transparent,  the  white  ground 
should  finally  lend  its  subdued  light  to  the 
mellowed  painting.  Pure  white  grounds  are, 
however,  as  every  artist  knows  who  has  tried 
them,  very  trying  to  the  eyes  until  they  are 
covered.  Not  only  that,  but  if  the  artist  has 
a  thin,  even  manner  of  applying  paint  to 
canvas,  it  takes  more  than  one  application  to 
cover  it  sufficiently  so  it  is  no  longer  a  cause 
of  disturbance  to  his  feeling  for  the  cor- 
rect tone  or  keynote  of  his  work.  To  over- 
come this  disturbance  to  the  artist's  comfort 
while  working,  and  to  save  time  and  labor  and 
avoid  repetition  of  the  application  of  certain 
tones  of  color  solely  to  hold  down  the  excessive 
light,  the  Masters  have  resorted  to  a  device 
which  shows  what  wonderful  craftsmen  they 
were,  aside  from  their  artistic  skill.  This 
device,  which  I  will  call  a  first  veil  or  stain, 
as  it  cannot  properly  be  called  a  glaze,  is  a 
very  thin,  transparent,  flat,  even  stain  over 
the  whole  surface  of  the  canvas,  and  of  which 
I  shall  treat  more  in  detail  later  on. 
65 


THE  SECEET  OF  THE  OLD   MASTERS 

Of  all  the  Masters,  this  first  veil  is  most 
obvious  in  Rubens,  and  was  said  to  have 
been,  in  some  few  cases,  made  up  of  a  very 
small  quantity  of  color  in  powder,  mixed  with 
a  glue  size  when  used  on  an  absorbent  glue- 
made  ground,  or  composed  of  quick-drying 
varnish  when  used  on  an  oil  ground.  One 
eminent  Italian  restorer,  who  studied  for  years 
the  secrets  of  the  Old  Masters  in  their  paint- 
ings, claims  to  have  found  the  same  kind  of 
glue-size  stain  in  Titian's  work.  For  ob- 
vious reasons  this  veil  must  dry  quickly  and 
thoroughly,  sufficiently  at  any  rate  so  it  shall 
lie  undisturbed  as  it  is  worked  upon  by  the 
artist  in  his  first  painting.  If  glue  size  is 
used  for  such  a  purpose,  it  follows  that  it  must 
be  over  a  white  ground  whose  binding  liquid 
was  also  a  glue,  so  as  to  bring  about  intimate 
union.  Rubens,  we  know,  has  made  exten- 
sive use  of  the  first  veil,  but  in  a  very  light, 
delicate  way.  His  famous  pupil,  Van  Dyck, 
also  made  constant  use  of  the  veil. 


66 


CHAPTER   V 

TEMPERA 

PAUL  VERONESE  was  said  by  Merimee  to 
have  begun  some  pictures  in  tempera  (colors 
in  watery  glues)  when  his  canvas  was  primed 
in  tempera.  This  is  rather  a  loose  statement 
to  make,  because  this  supposes  the  use  of 
white  or  body  color.  In  my  judgment,  if  he 
used  colors  mixed  in  glue  size  on  a  glue 
"gesso  "  ground  sometimes,  he  did  it  only  as 
a  kind  of  veil  of  the  dazzling  white.  This 
veil  contained  no  white  or  body  color,  and 
was  only  a  delicate  local  color  stain  or  veil. 
By  local  colors,  of  course,  I  mean  a  sugges- 
tion of  the  color  very  thinly  and  transparent- 
ly of,  say  in  a  portrait,  a  tint  for  the  hair, 
another  for  the  flesh,  another  for  the  drapery, 
another  for  the  background,  etc.,  but  this,  of 
67 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

course,  supposing  there  is  a  very  correct 
drawing  on  the  white  ground  in  some  kind 
of  crayon  not  easily  washed  away  by  the 
brush.  This  local  color  veil,  or  stain,  is  very 
comfortable  to  work  on  if  it  is  varnished  suf- 
ficiently when  dry.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
local  color  may,  in  a  similar  way,  be  applied 
with  oil  or  varnish  as  a  medium,  or  it  may 
even  be  applied  after  the  broad,  general  flat 
veil  above  described  has  been  used. 

All  these  different  slight  variations  of  the 
same  principle  may  be  used  as  the  artist's 
taste  dictates,  only  besides  taste  a  question 
of  time  and  proper  drying  is  to  be  considered. 
Of  course  a  local  tinting  or  veiling  of  which 
the  binding  liquid  is  size  or  glue  must  be  ap- 
plied to  a  size  or  glue  ground  of  equal  char- 
acter and  composition,  and  in  immediate  con- 
tact, so  a  close  union  is  obtained;  if  not,  the 
paint  is  liable  to  peel  off  and  otherwise  de- 
teriorate. While  on  this  subject  of  tempera 
pure  and  simple,  I  would  say  that  unless  it  is 
protected  by  some  kind  of  moisture-resisting 
68 


TEMPERA 

varnish  it  is  as  destructible  as  the  lovely 
pastel.  The  effects  of  tempera  for  decorative 
purposes  can  be  obtained  by  oil  paint  in  a 
finer  and  far  more  powerful  manner,  with  a 
wider  range,  and  are  far  more  durable.  But 
to  mix  tempera  with  oil  painting,  except  as 
above  indicated,  is  absurd.  Tempera  colors 
have  been  put  up  in  tubes  by  manufacturers 
every  little  while  on  some  secret  and  much- 
heralded  discovery  as  the  Masters'  secret, 
or  as  a  manifestation  of  a  serious  revolt 
against  the  "  deviltries  "  of  oil  or  varnish, 
but  they  all  fall  into  disuse  because  tempera 
as  a  substitute  for  oil  has  the  fatal  weakness 
that  it  is  not  so  easy  to  handle,  has  not  the 
wide  range  or  power,  and  its  durability  is  not 
to  be  compared  with  oil  at  all. 

Everybody  knows  the  color  of  the  ground 
influences  the  eye  working  on  it.  Titian's 
study  for  the  Pesaro  Madonna  at  Venice  has  a 
reddish  veil,  and  though  we  can  easily  im- 
agine such  a  powerful  artist  using  any  kind  of 
tinted  veil  to  suit  his  ultimate  intention,  he 
69 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

seems  to  have  had  a  leaning  in  preference  to 
red,  and  the  red  is  an  extremely  difficult  tone 
to  control.  That  the  Old  Masters,  for  all 
large,  important  work,  used  careful  drawings, 
and  particularly  Titian  and  Rubens,  cannot 
be  denied.  There  are,  however,  few  authentic 
drawings  of  Titian 's  in  existence,  and  the  pre- 
sumption is  that  when  possible  he  worked 
without  their  aid.  Rubens  was  extremely 
particular  that  the  ground  should  maintain  its 
purity  and  not  have  any  black  get  in  any  of 
the  shadows,  for  which  condition  he  had  a 
wholesome  antipathy.  Whether  the  veil  be 
passed  over  the  drawing,  or  passed  over  the 
white  ground  before  the  drawing  is  put  on, 
remains  a  matter  of  taste.  The  probability 
was  that  the  drawing  was  placed  in  most 
cases  on  the  white  ground  with  some  material 
not  easily  effaced  when  a  wet  brush  passed 
over  it.  Rubens  very  probably  used  the  same 
kind  of  crayon  with  which  he  made  his  first 
drawings  on  paper.  This  veil,  it  must  be  un- 
derstood, was  one  broad,  flat,  very  light  and 
70 


TEMPERA 

transparent  tone — without  any  body  color — 
spread  over  the  whole  canvas ;  and,  as  I  have 
tested  in  many  instances,  a  veil  made  of  copal 
varnish  thin  enough  to  avoid  a  glassy  surface, 
with  some  raw  umber  or  other  color  in  powder 
added  when  well  dried,  makes  a  beautiful  and 
durable  ground  to  work  on,  either  with  an 
absorbent  or  nonabsorbent  ground,  only  a  lit- 
tle more  care  and  experience  is  necessary  when 
applying  to  an  absorbent  ground.  If  time  is 
of  no  particular  value  at  this  stage  of  the 
work,  a  veil  composed  of  oil  thickened  in  the 
sun  on  litharge  and  then  reduced  to  the  de- 
sired thinness  with  the  aid  of  fresh  turpen- 
tine, and  a  very  little  of  the  desired  color 
added,  placed  on  an  oil  or  other  nonabsorb- 
ent ground,  is  very  satisfactory,  if  it  is  then 
thoroughly  dried  out. 

Here,  with  the  veil,  we  must  well  consider 
the  advisability  of  the  introduction  of  a  sub- 
stance other  than  oil  into  an  oil  painting — in 
this  case  the  copal.  The  use  of  copal  at  this 
stage  of  the  work,  and  in  this  manner,  is, 
6  71 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

from  the  standpoint  of  durability,  perfectly 
sound,  provided  it  is  thoroughly  dry  and 
hard  before  it  is  worked  upon.  The  copal 
thus  used  can  and  does  dry  evenly,  and  at- 
taches, unites,  and  anchors  itself  to  the 
ground,  and  if  treated  in  such  manner  as  I 
shall  indicate  later  on,  closes  the  pores  suf- 
ficiently to  serve  the  other  purpose  of  making 
an  absorbent  ground  far  more  agreeable  to 
work  upon.  The  brush  goes  over  the  surface 
more  evenly  and  much  more  quickly,  thus 
again  saving  tune,  which  in  case  of  an  artist 
face  to  face  with  a  sitter  or  model  is  of  ex- 
ceeding importance.  Further,  a  work  easily 
done  is  more  apt  to  have  life  and  interest  than 
if  the  same  amount  of  artistic  facts  were  put 
in  with  more  labor. 

It  must  be  accepted  as  a  fact,  however,  that 
a  painting  done  with  freedom  and  ease  is 
certain  to  have  more  beauty.  A  painting 
done,  as  it  often  is  (and  shows  it,  too),  with 
an  appalling  amount  of  sheer  labor,  makes 
of  the  artist  a  laborer.  It  must  go  without 
72 


TEMPERA 

saying  that  the  Old  Masters,  Titian  and  Ru- 
bens in  particular,  were  familiar  with  every 
labor-  and  time-saving  device.  If  their  work 
had  not  been  done  easily  and  quickly,  and 
at  the  same  time  with  absolute  thoroughness 
and  certainty,  they  could  not  have  produced 
what  they  did,  and  the  art  world  would 
have  been  poorer  in  proportion.  The  addi- 
tional advantage  of  this  first  veil  is  that  its 
color  can  be  changed  and  the  tone  varied  to 
suit  the  subject  in  hand,  and  thus  make  an  in- 
viting change  for  the  artist  himself ;  or,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  landscape  painters,  a  reddish 
tone  may  be  used,  which  in  time  comes  through 
and  modifies  and  mellows  the  raw  greens,  a 
process  said  on  good  authority  to  have  been 
used  by  one  of  the  very  best  American  land- 
scape painters,  George  Inness.  He  had  studied 
in  Italy,  and  the  Old  Masters'  method  of 
transparent  colors  placed  one  above  the  other 
could  not  but  influence  such  genius  as  his.  His 
method,  as  described  in  reference  to  the  veil, 
reads  thus:  "  Stained  white  canvas  with  Ve- 
73 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

netian  red,  transparent,  then  drew  with  char- 
coal, confirmed  with  pencil,"  etc.  This  red 
veil  or  stain  is  beautiful  as  a  base  on  which  to 
paint  the  greens  of  landscapes;  it  has  a  fine, 
mellowing,  rich  influence  after  a  short  time, 
and  is  very  helpful  and  agreeable  to  the  artist 
while  working;  but  as  a  base  for  the  skies 
and  light  parts,  unless  used  with  extreme  thin- 
ness and  transparency  is  sure  to  come  through 
in  time  and  injure  the  blues  and  sky  notes; 
and  if  so  thinly  used,  would  have  no  marked 
influence  for  good  or  evil  on  the  greens. 

In  this  I  prefer  Turner's  method  of  the 
solid  white,  blue,  and  blue-black  foundation, 
with  a  gradual  approach  to  the  final  local 
color  of  each  part  of  the  picture.  It  is  true 
that  the  character  of  Turner's  landscapes  and 
marines  is  such  that  I  do  not  recollect  at  this 
moment  one  that  contains  a  large  amount  of 
green  for  grass,  trees,  and  foliage.  This  prob- 
lem of  the  green,  I  think,  has  been  solved  by 
Claude  Lorraine  and  Cuyp.  The  fact  that 
some  of  Inness's  landscapes  are  showing  a 
74 


TEMPERA 

tendency  to  darken  beyond  the  mellow  rich- 
ness so  characteristic  of  his  work,  makes  me 
feel  the  more  that  Turner's  method  is  the 
safest  and  surest  for  maintaining  the  light  and 
luminosity  equally  necessary  to  be  maintained 
in  landscape  as  in  flesh.  Cuyp  shows  the  blue 
and  white  under  the  greens  very  distinctly, 
agreeably,  and  durably.  All  these  devices 
must  be  used  with  judgment,  and  above  all 
with  common  sense.  Technically,  painting  is 
not  a  chance  collection  of  materials — it  is  a 
science,  as  Vibert  says — and  a  glance  at  three 
or  four  pictures  by  Titian,  Rubens,  or  Velas- 
quez will  show  a  thinking  person  that  the 
stamp  of  the  science  of  painting  is  upon  them. 
And,  further,  no  man  must  expect  to  paint 
like  one  of  the  Great  Masters  even  if  he  had 
a  minute  description  of  their  materials  and 
methods  by  an  eyewitness.  The  ideas  herein 
given  are  merely  the  result  of  a  very  long 
and  patient  search  for  the  Masters'  methods 
and  material,  and  each  artist  must  and 
should  work  out  his  own  artistic  salvation. 
75 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

He  should  retain  to  the  fullest  extent  his  in- 
dividuality, even  as  Rubens  did  his,  in  face 
of  Titian's  great  works,  and  Van  Dyck  his, 
in  face  of  Rubens 's  equally  great  works.  Ve- 
lasquez calmly  kept  on  in  his  technical  meth- 
ods, in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Rubens,  for 
nearly  three  months,  did  much  work  in  his 
presence  in  Madrid,  and  that  he  was  sur- 
rounded on  all  sides  by  the  work  of  Titian, 
Tintoretto,  and  Paul  Veronese. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE    "  VENETIAN    SECRET  ":    "  DEAD    COLOR,' 
OR  FIRST   PAINTING  FOR  FLESH 


BEFORE  proceeding  farther  afield  it  will 
be  necessary  to  dwell  upon  the  process  or 
method  and  handling  revealed  in  making  stud- 
ies of  Titian's  work  at  Florence,  Italy.  There, 
although  I  had  studied  the  Masters  before 
with  the  "  Venetian  Secret  "  (as  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  called  it)  in  mind,  I  had  made  no 
actual  copies.  I  now  made  copies  with  this 
special  object  in  view.  I  soon  found  I  could 
not  produce  the  effects  in  the  flesh  or  carna- 
tion parts,  especially  if  I  did  not  prepare  or 
"  dead  color  "  such  parts  with  heavy  body 
color  in  a  rather  cold  silvery  or  purplish  tone 
in  the  first  painting.  Those  parts  had  to  be 
correctly  drawn  and  modeled  in  tone  with 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

black    and   white,    with   some    kind   of    red 
added. 

The  principle  of  dead  coloring  originated 
undoubtedly  in  the  feeling  of  some  artist, 
probably  Giorgione,  that  if  he  could  only  sep- 
arate the  drawing  and  modeling  from  the  col- 
oring, and  devote  all  his  energy  and  attention 
to  each  in  turn,  and  especially  to  the  coloring 
of  the  flesh  alone,  oil  painting  would  be  more 
successful  and  pleasant ;  and  that  is  just  what 
the  principle  of  dead  coloring  has  done, 
and  much  more.  It  has  proved  itself  solid 
and  permanent.  It  has  separated  the  thick 
painting  from  the  thin,  the  opaque  from  the 
semitransparent,  and  the  semitransparent 
from  the  final  transparent.  Just  note  what 
advantages  these  are,  making  for  quality,  ease 
of  handling,  and,  lastly,  the  actual  time  sav- 
ing. It  has  not  apparently  influenced  the 
virility  of  the  Masters  detrimentally.  On  the 
contrary,  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that 
it  has  helped  each  strong  man  to  enhance  his 
individuality.  Imagine  a  white  canvas  with 
78 


THE  "VENETIAN  SECRET" 

a  drawing  in  thin,  mild,  yet  distinct  lines, 
showing  through  a  transparent  veil  or  flat 
stain  whose  surface  is  dry  and  hard.  You 
have  no  fear  of  losing  the  drawing  at  any 
time;  that  is  the  first  stage  of  separation  of 
the  drawing  from  the  modeling  and  coloring. 
Then  you  paint  your  modeling  of  the  flesh, 
let  us  say,  in  blue-black  and  white,  in  tone, 
and  sufficiently  thick  and  heavy  of  body  in  the 
light,  sufficiently  cold  and  silvery  throughout, 
and  the  coldness  modified  with  a  suitable  cau- 
tious addition  of  red  only. 

After  suitable  drying  we  are  ready  to  de- 
vote our  attention  to  the  coloring  alone,  the 
composition,  drawing,  and  modeling  being  fin- 
ished. The  principle  underlying  the  use  of 
dead  coloring  for  flesh  as  against  the  modern 
direct  method  of  getting  the  coloring  of  the 
sitter  or  model  at  once,  or  as  quickly  and 
directly  as  possible,  is  that  in  the  "  dead 
coloring,"  or  "  Venetian  Secret  Method," 
as  Reynolds  called  it,  the  "  dead  color  " 
or  first  painting  is  a  thick  bed  or  foun- 
79 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

dation  of  pigment  composed  only  of  white, 
black,  and  some  kind  of  red  that  is  chosen 
according  to  the  complexion  of  the  flesh  to 
be  painted;  and  when  this  has  been  thor- 
oughly dried  the  following  paintings  are 
then  applied  in  very  thin,  transparent,  veil- 
like  tones,  semitransparent,  with  or  without 
white.  A  logical  process  from  the  first  lumi- 
nous cold  underpainting,  and  the  less  cold  reds 
to  still  warmer,  and  finally  to  the  yellows ;  in 
short,  the  placing  of  one  tint  or  tints  on  top 
of  one  or  more  other  colors,  the  effect  of  each 
intended  to  be  visible,  as  against  the  modern 
direct  method  of  colors  side  by  side.  In  paint- 
ing flesh  in  this  method  the  great  Venetians 
were  sparing  and  exceedingly  careful  in  the 
use  of  yellows,  as  all  painting  yellowed  a  bit, 
some  very  much  so.  But,  and  there  is  a  but, 
this  method  hampers  the  freedom  of  spon- 
taneous creation,  seemingly  so  necessary  to 
the  modern  spirit  of  haste;  though,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  did  not  seem  to  hamper  the 
Masters  who  practiced  it,  such  as  Titian, 
80 


THE  "VENETIAN  SECRET" 

Velasquez,  Veronese,  Tintoretto,  Rubens,  Van 
Dyck,  Reynolds,  and  many  others. 

The  Venetian  Method  prevented  a  head,  for 
instance,  from  being  finished  with  the  first 
painting;  but,  as  Titian  is  reported  to  have 
said,  "  He  who  improvises  cannot  hope  to 
make  metrical  verses."  This  expression  was 
used  in  a  technical  sense,  and  it  is  at  this  point 
that  another  important  fact  must  be  noted, 
and  the  expression  "  metrical  verses  "  has 
something  to  do  with  it.  Oil  painting  has 
the  characteristic  that  it  either  gets  yellow, 
brown,  or  even  black  in  a  comparatively  short 
time,  or  if  properly  executed  it  mellows  and 
its  tones  become  transparent.  As  each  upper- 
most tone  becomes  transparent  the  next  un- 
derneath becomes  visible,  and  so  on  down  to 
the  ground  of  the  canvas.  Now,  supposing 
your  ground  is  pure  white,  your  painting  in 
time  becomes  more  luminous.  If  your  ground 
is  dark  red,  such  as  the  Bolognese  school  used, 
the  whole  picture  will  eventually  disappear  in 
dark  red.  If  your  ground  is  dark  gray,  your 
81 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

picture  will  become  dingy  and  somber.  Leav- 
ing the  ground  for  the  present,  we  find  that  if 
the  painting  is  well  done — that  is,  each  color 
note  placed  in  exactly  its  right  place,  and  not 
a  light  messed  over  a  dark,  and  a  cold  tone 
over  a  warm,  etc. — in  time  the  beauty  of  the 
picture  will  be  greatly  enhanced. 

If,  however,  this  is  not  the  case,  and  lights 
are  on  darks  and  cold  tones  on  warm,  color, 
light,  and  harmony  will  be  destroyed.  When- 
ever a  tone  of  color  warmer  and  darker  is 
hidden  underneath  another,  the  upper  is  sure 
to  be  sacrificed;  this  is  absolutely  proved  be- 
yond question.  Then,  in  fact,  as  Titian  says, 
we  have  no  ' '  metrical  verses, ' '  and  the  result 
is  in  time  sure  to  be  an  uninteresting  brown, 
dingy  picture,  and  then  the  well-meaning  but 
often  stupid  cleaners  get  at  it  and  finish  the 
suicide.  The  "  Venetian  Method,"  it  must 
be  understood,  is  easier,  and  the  results  more 
assured  for  posterity  in  the  hands  of  a  skilled 
artist  in  that  method,  but  it  is  exceedingly 
difficult  to  one  who  has  been  used  to  the 
82 


THE  "VENETIAN  SECRET" 

modern  direct  method.  For  you  draw  and 
model  and  make  a  bed,  so  to  speak,  with  a 
monotone  silvery  gray  having  a  very  small 
quantity  of  red  added.  It  is  a  constant  trans- 
lation of  color  values,  light  and  dark,  with 
correct  drawing  and  modeling,  not  only  in 
correct  values,  but  also  in  the  very  important 
application  of  thick  or  heavy  paint.  The 
lights  are  graded  down  to  the  thinner  or  less 
heavy  paint  in  the  darks.  But  if  the  founda- 
tion color  as  a  whole  is  too  thin,  the  thin  after 
paintings  would  then  leave  the  total  final  effect 
too  weak.  Or  if  then  the  after  paintings  or 
glazes  are  painted  as  a  whole  thicker,  to  give 
the  picture  the  solidity  the  first  painting 
lacked,  then  the  final  transparency  is  lost,  and 
the  final  effect  of  the  dead  coloring  is  reduced 
to  nothing. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  Rubens  would  paint 
so  exceedingly  thin  in  the  darks  and  in  the 
half  tones  that  he  could  afford  to  paint  the 
lights  comparatively  thin  and  yet  have 
strength  and  virility.  This  all,  of  course,  ap- 
83 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

plies  to  the  painting  of  the  flesh  only,  but  the 
principle  may  be  extended  for  draperies,  ob- 
jects, and  landscapes.  This  principle  must, 
however,  have  an  exception  and  be  inverted  in 
the  case  of  painting  black  satin  or  other  very 
dark  draperies  or  objects,  as  shown  most 
plainly  on  Van  Dyck's  masterly  portraits.  On 
the  canvas  ground  where  the  black  or  dark 
drapery  is  to  be,  a  thin,  transparent,  broad, 
flat,  warm  tint  is  placed,  and  your  black 
drapery,  in  more  or  less  cool  tint,  is  painted 
complete,  drawn  and  modeled  with  the  brush 
' '  alia  prima, ' '  or  finished  with  one  first  direct 
painting  as  near  finality  as  possible,  and  cor- 
rect in  tone,  color,  modeling,  and  drawing,  and 
especially  not  too  dark,  as  it  darkens  a  bit 
afterwards.  Titian,  however,  painted  blacks 
more  thickly,  without  regard  for  the  ground, 
and  in  this  respect  I  prefer  Rubens  and  Van 
Dyck,  because  their  black  draperies  make  the 
whole  picture  appear  less  heavy.  Then  in 
painting  red  draperies  a  first  or  foundation 
painting  is  made  in  red,  on  the  same  principle 
84 


THE  "VENETIAN  SECRET" 

as  dead  coloring  for  flesh,  embodying  correct 
drawing  and  modeling  of  the  folds,  lights  and 
darks,  etc.,  only  not  quite  such  care  is  neces- 
sary; but  the  red  first  painting  must  be  a 
trifle  colder  and  lighter  than  it  is  to  be  finally, 
and  with  the  necessary  bed  or  thickness  of 
paint.  After  this  has  dried  thoroughly,  a 
deeper,  richer  red,  as  transparent  and  minus 
body  as  possible,  is  applied  all  over,  the  ex- 
treme lights  and  darks  reenforced,  and  so  on. 
The  same  principle  applies  to  yellow  or  blue 
draperies,  and  for  others  it  must  be  intelli- 
gently modified  or  extended.  For  green  the 
method  is,  of  course,  to  "  dead  color  "  blue 
or  bluish,  and  veil  or  glaze  with  warmer  yellow 
tints.  A  little  thought  and  invention  as  well 
as  the  study  of  the  Masters  will  make  beauti- 
ful combinations  and  color  effects.  These  are 
the  merest  outlines  as  to  the  principles ;  there 
may  be  other  colors  added  to  those  suggested 
above,  according  to  the  artist's  taste  and  abil- 
ity to  bring  out  a  harmonious  whole,  which 
should  always  be  the  object  in  view. 
85 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

The  process  of  "  dead  coloring  "  for  flesh 
does  not  necessarily  preclude  the  rest  of  the 
picture  being  painted  "  alia  prima,"  as  shown 
above  for  black  drapery.  The  same  applies 
to  the  problem  of  hair,  and  if  that  of  a  woman, 
and  of  a  kind  that  changes  often  in  form,  as 
long  hair  is  sure  to  do,  the  problem  must  be 
solved  by  painting  it ' '  alia  prima, "  or  at  first 
trial  completed.  But  before  this  is  attempted 
its  immediate  environment  should  be  prac- 
tically completed,  so  its  tone,  form,  and  color 
values  can  be  more  surely  judged  and  placed 
to  stay  untouched;  except,  perhaps,  when  it 
is  dry  to  give  it  a  most  thin,  transparent  glaze 
or  veil  of  some  warmer  tint,  if  it  should  hap- 
pen to  appear  as  a  whole  mass  too  cold.  A 
most  beautiful,  I  might  say  the  most  beauti- 
ful example  of  hair  painting  in  the  world  is 
that  of  Titian's  "  Saint  Mary  Magdalen,"  in 
Florence.  It  is  painted  on  wood,  with  much 
of  the  white  ground  showing  through,  and  in 
this  picture  Titian's  technie  resembles  that  of 
Kubens  in  a  very  striking  manner.  The  great 
86 


THE  "VENETIAN  SECRET" 

waves  of  glorious  hair  are  freshly,  easily,  and 
beautifully  painted,  in  mass  as  well  as  in 
detail.  I  should  not  be  at  all  surprised  if 
this  picture  had  inspired  Rubens  to  paint  his 
11  Christ  and  the  Sinner,"  now  in  Munich; 
Rubens 's  Magdalen  has  blond  hair  and  the 
attitude  is  not  quite  the  same,  but  the  ability 
with  which  the  problem  has  been  solved  is 
very  nearly  equal,  with  the  choice  slightly  in 
favor  of  Titian.  This  manner  of  painting 
must  be  often  applied  to  very  loose  or  flying 
drapery.  The  "  Venetian  Method  "  requires 
greater  care  in  the  inception  of  a  portrait  or 
picture.  There  can  be  no  changes  made  of 
any  importance  to  the  contours  or  forms  or 
modeling  after  the  coloring  has  been  begun 
without  injuring  the  beauty,  durability,  and 
purity  of  the  technic.  In  short,  again  no 
' '  metrical  verses. ' '  The  teehnic  of  a  painting 
of  flesh  done  in  this  manner  acquires  a  cast 
over  the  whole  surface  that  the  modern  man- 
ner cannot  give.  "  The  effect  of  the  whole," 
as  Reynolds  says,  is  much  more  easily  and 
7  87 


naturally  maintained.  The  effect  of  a  modern 
portrait  head  after  a  short  lapse  of  time,  say 
twenty-five  to  fifty  years,  is,  compared  to  a 
similar  head  by  the  Masters,  either  very  weak, 
yellowish  brown,  and  uninteresting,  or  coarse, 
spotty,  and  inharmonious.  They  are  mostly 
weak,  for  they  have  not  that  united  bed  of 
uniform  luminous  color  to  hold  them  up.  The 
effect  of  time,  when  the  painting  has  been 
done  by  the  "  Venetian  Method/'  is  to  im- 
prove the  picture,  for  in  spite  of  everything  a 
picture  will  and  should  mellow  somewhat,  and 
even  yellow  a  little.  The  superiority  lies  there- 
in that  as  the  outer  thin  layers,  veils,  or  glazes 
become  dryer  and  more  transparent,  the  sil- 
very, I  may  almost  say  silvery  violet  of  the 
"  dead  coloring  "  appears  and  very  prettily 
counteracts  the  yellow,  and  gives  the  picture 
new  life,  enhances  the  color  and  luminosity, 
and  makes  it  retain  a  permanent  interest,  as  we 
see  in  the  works  of  the  Masters.  Well-painted 
pictures  are  like  good  wine,  they  improve  with 
age.  But  of  pictures  painted  in  the  modern 
88 


THE  "VENETIAN  SECRET" 

method,  the  most  of  them  are  sure  to  reach  the 
brownish  stage,  deteriorate,  and  lose  quality. 
Perhaps  an  exceedingly  small  percentage  will 
survive.  The  adoption  of  the  "  Venetian 
Method  "  is  not  necessarily  going  to  produce 
good  pictures,  except  in  the  hands  of  an  artist 
of  ability,  refinement,  energy,  and  vitality ;  for 
no  fine,  great  work  is  produced  without  some 
such  combination,  much  practice  and  skill 
being  always  necessary. 


89 


CHAPTER   VII 

THREE    COLORS 

THERE  has  been  more  or  less  talk  of  a  lost 
art,  and  sometimes  I  was  almost  convinced  that 
the  methods  and  materials  of  the  Old  Masters 
were  lost.  But  now  I  am  sure  we  have  nearly 
all  the  colors  they  had,  and  we  have  many 
more,  good  and  bad,  that  they  did  not  have. 
I  am  also  convinced  that  the  very  wealth, 
variety,  and  brilliance  of  modern  colors  has 
been  a  serious  drawback.  The  Masters  cer- 
tainly painted  with  fewer  colors;  this  has 
been  said  often  before,  but  every  artist  that 
adopts  the  ' '  Venetian  Method  ' '  will  see  how 
logical  and  necessary  the  use  of  few  colors 
only  at  a  time  becomes.  When  painting  flesh, 
three  colors  at  once  is  a  high  average  mixture, 
and  four  seems  the  limit;  but  these  were  all 
90 


THREE  COLORS 

so  pure,  fresh,  and  carefully  prepared  in  the 
studios  that  there  was  no  time  for  them  to  get 
half-dry  or  rancid;  they  were  not  likely  to 
change  afterwards,  and  there  was  no  substance 
introduced  to  prevent  them  from  drying  too 
soon,  as  is  a  commercial  necessity  to-day  with 
the  manufacturers'  tube  colors.  The  Masters 
used  their  colors  as  fresh  as  possible  every 
day,  and  the  oil  was,  as  Dr.  De  Meyern  is  re- 
ported to  have  been  told  by  Van  Dyck  him- 
self, "  the  most  important  object  of  care  on 
the  part  of  the  artist ;  it  was  necessary  that  it 
should  be  of  the  freshest,  most  limpid,  clear, 
and  almost  colorless  kind." 

Marco  Boschini  *  relates  that  Titian  said, 
"  Whoever  would  be  a  painter  should  be  well 
acquainted  with  three  colors  and  have  per- 
fect command  over  them  ("  haverli  in  man  "), 
namely,  white,  red,  and  black."  How  much 
truth  there  may  be  in  the  secondhand  and 
possibly  distorted  evidence  of  Signer  Boschi- 

*  Le  ricche  minere  della  pittura.     Veneaia,  1674. 
91 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

ni's  as  to  Titian's  methods  of  work  and  say- 
ings, I  will  leave  to  the  reader.  But  in  this 
case  the  knowledge  and  importance  hinted 
at  of  a  particular  use  of  white,  black,  and  red 
is  sustained  by  the  researches  and  practice  of 
another  very  celebrated  painter,  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  who  experimented  and  practiced  on 
the  theory  of  dead  coloring,  often,  it  is  said, 
rubbing  down  an  old  master  to  see  what  kind 
of  dead  coloring  was  underneath.  As  his 
diaries  reveal,  he  conducted  a  patient  and  very 
persistent  search,  extending  over  many  years, 
and  attended  at  times  with  very  great  success, 
judging  by  the  beauty  of  some  of  his  work. 
But  his  search  for  a  transparent,  durable,  and 
easily  handled  vehicle  or  medium  has  evi- 
dently been  a  failure,  or  he  did  not  recognize 
it  when  he  had  it ;  and  the  reason  of  his  fail- 
ure in  this  respect  is  due  in  part  to  a  false 
theory  of  the  Masters'  medium  or  results. 

To  return  to  Boschini's  evidence.     Many 
attempts  have  been  made  in  Italy,  and  doubt- 
less  elsewhere  in   Europe,   by  painters  and 
92 


THREE  COLORS 

restorers  to  discover  on  Titian's  paintings 
where  an  injury  or  other  chance  favored,  to 
study  his  method  in  painting  flesh,  and  nearly 
all  have  arrived  at  the  same  conclusion  as  to 
the  principle  of  the  method — that  is,  the  use 
of  a  cold,  silvery,  rather  thick  or  heavy  bed 
or  foundation  for  first  painting,  yet  with  a 
reddish  cast.  This  seems,  at  all  events,  to 
bear  out  Signor  Boschini  as  to  Titian's  re- 
ported use  of  white,  red,  and  black.  Judg- 
ing from  the  unfinished  study  by  Titian,  in 
Florence,  of  the  Pesaro  Madonna  and  Child 
in  the  Church  of  the  Frari  at  Venice,  the 
foundation  color  or  first  painting  on  a  great 
part  of  the  study  is  obviously  left  untouched, 
as  originally  painted,  and  it  has  a  strong  red- 
dish cast.  This  red,  allowing  a  slight  change 
for  time,  was  to  me  unfamiliar;  it  was  not 
like  our  modern  madder,  because  it  seemed 
to  have  more  body,  and  not  like  vermilion  or 
Indian  red,  because  the  former  had  not  the 
right  tone  of  color  and  the  other  had  too  much 
body  or  heaviness,  and  both  madder  and  In- 
93 


dian  red  were  too  raw  and  powerful  in  the 
light  parts  where  heavily  charged  with  white. 
The  whole  canvas  of  the  Pesaro  Madonna 
study  appeared  to  be  thinly  stained  with  this 
red,  and  in  parts,  such  as  the  drapery  and 
hair,  much  more  strongly  stained  with  the 
same  color.  It  is  probable  that  the  red  used 
was  either  a  peculiar  crude  madder,  a  red 
earth,  a  combination  of  reds,  or  a  madder 
modified  with  a  bone  brown  or  black. 

In  his  treatise  on  painting,  written  in  1437, 
forty  years  before  Titian  was  born,  Cennini 
mentions  a  red  earth,  called  sinopia,  as  fre- 
quently used.  This  may  have  had  the  soft 
purple  in  the  half  tones  and  shadows,  and  the 
silvery  tone  in  the  light  parts  when  mixed 
with  white  and  used  as  the  ' '  dead  coloring  ' ' 
for  flesh  that  we  see  in  the  Pesaro  study.  But 
the  use  of  this  red  or  other  reds  in  the  dead 
coloring  must  be  a  matter  of  taste  and  temper- 
ament. Veronese's  work  indicates  Indian  red, 
Rubens  seemed  fondest  of  vermilion  when  he 
painted  in  that  method,  Van  Dyck  used  in  his 
94 


THREE  COLORS 

' '  dead  color  "  at  an  early  stage  of  his  artistic 
development  a  far  stronger  red,  which  he  af- 
terwards abandoned  for  a  much  milder  tone, 
Velasquez's  foundation  color  suggests  vermil- 
ion, and  Reynolds,  toward  the  end  of  his  life, 
evidently  made  use  of  Indian  red.  In  one  of 
Tintoretto's  largest  pictures  at  Venice,  when 
I  saw  it,  the  foundation  color  was  almost  en- 
tirely exposed.  It  seemed  to  be  composed  only 
of  black  and  white.  I  say  seemed,  because 
ninety-five  per  cent  of  the  after  painting  had 
disappeared  or  been  ' '  cleaned  ' '  off,  and  visi- 
bly only  black  and  white  remained.  I  had  an 
experience  which  makes  me  think  that  possibly 
it  was  the  same  with  him.  I  dead-colored 
a  portrait  of  myself  with  white,  black,  and 
madder,  and  then  unwisely  gave  it  a  thin 
coating  of  wax,  and  upon  this  I  finished  with 
glazings  and  semitransparent  layers.  Within 
a  year  the  paint  as  it  dried,  having  no  longer 
a  secure  foothold  on  the  wax,  had  to  let  go, 
and  began  to  peel  off.  I  made  a  thorough  ex- 
amination and  was  surprised  to  discover  that 
95 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

not  a  trace  of  the  madder  in  the  dead  col- 
oring remained !  I  had  made  a  written  mem- 
orandum (as  was  my  invariable  custom)  at 
the  time  I  painted  it,  so  there  was  no  mistake 
or  illusion,  and  no  artist  friend  of  mine  could 
discover  a  trace  of  the  so-called  madder  in  the 
"  black  and  white,"  which  I  still  have!  The 
same  results,  undoubtedly  from  similar  causes, 
have  occurred  in  many  of  Sir  Joshua  Reyn- 
olds's  portraits.  At  another  place  I  will  en- 
deavor to  show  why  black  and  white  alone,  as 
dead  coloring,  is  unwise  and  pernicious. 

To  return  to  our  search.     There  has  come 
down  to  us  a  description  of  Titian's  method 

of  work  in  the  last  period  of  his  life  by 
Titian 

the   before-mentioned   Marco    Boschini, 

who  had  the  description  from  Palma  the 
younger,  "  who  had  the  good  fortune  to  re- 
ceive the  valuable  teaching  of  Titian  himself. ' ' 
The  Palma  description  says:  "  Titian  based 
his  pictures  with  such  a  mass  of  color  that 
it  served  as  a  base  to  build  on  afterwards. 
The  first  penciling  with  a  full  brush  and  thick, 
96 


THREE  COLORS 

heavy  color,  the  half  tones  in  pure  red  earth, 
the  lights  with  white,  then  broken  with  the 
same  brush  with  red,  black,  and  yellow;  in 
this  manner  there  were  four  pencilings  for  a 
whole  figure;  between  the  pencilings  more  or 
less  time  would  elapse.  It  was  contrary  to  his 
habit  to  finish  a  painting  consecutively,  be- 
cause, as  he  said,  '  a  poet  who  improvises  can- 
not hope  to  make  metrical  verses.'  The  con- 
tours and  modeling  would  often  only  be  fixed 
with  the  third  or  fourth  penciling.  Then  be- 
gan the  thin  glazing  and  semiglazing  and 
finishing. ' ' 

Palma  has  also  handed  down  to  us  two  im- 
portant sayings  of  Titian's,  the  one  about  the 
three  colors,  white,  black,  and  red,  already 
quoted,  and  the  following,  which,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  identification,  I  will  call,  say,  num- 
ber two :  "  To  arrive  at  lifelike  flesh  tint  the 
carnation  should  not  be  finished  '  alia  prima, ' 
but  different  tints  should  be  laid  one  over  the 
other."  Of  my  own  knowledge  many  able 
men  have  given  the  Palma  description  re- 
97 


THE  SECRET   OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

peated  tests,  and  it  has  been  decided  that  with 
black  and  white,  and  with  any  color  whatever 
coming  under  the  name  of  red  earth  in  com- 
bination with  a  yellow,  be  it  yellow  ochre  or 
even  a  stronger  yellow  there  is  nothing  to 
recommend  the  Palma  system  for  color-get- 
ting, time-saving,  durability,  or  any  other 
quality  that  could  distinguish  it  from  any  or- 
dinary modern  four-color  process.  The  de- 
scription would  fit  in  with  what  we  know  and 
see  in  Titian's  work  if  we  left  out  the  yellow. 
The  "  dead  color  "  of  the  study  of  the  infant 
Christ  for  the  Pesaro  Madonna  not  only  has 
no  yellow,  but  even  might  be  produced  with  a 
certain  kind  of  red  and  white  alone,  and  even, 
without  any  black  ( !  ),  or  at  least  with  an  ex- 
tremely small  quantity,  and  what  a  fine  tone  it 
is  to  build  on,  cold,  yet  not  black  and  white. 
But  what  kind  of  red  it  is  would  be  difficult 
to  ascertain;  probably  very  scarce — like  the 
true  ultramarine — or  no  longer  obtainable. 

Assuming  that  the  Palma  description  is  a 
true  and  errorless  statement,  and  that  no  acci- 
98 


THREE  COLORS 

dental  mistake  has  crept  in,  we  know  quite 
certainly  that  it  refers  to  Titian's  method 
practiced  toward  the  end  of  his  life.  This 
latter  method,  when  Titian  made  use  of  it, 
is  easily  identified  by  an  artist,  and  Du  Fres- 
noy,  in  his  history,  says  that  "  the  pictures 
which  he  painted  in  the  beginning  and  in  the 
declension  of  his  age  are  of  a  dry  and  mean 
manner. ' '  They  resemble  the  modern  method 
of  direct  painting  in  that  the  last  touches  of 
the  brush  produce  almost  the  entire  visible 
effect,  whereas  in  his  middle  manner,  and 
more  beautiful  technic,  two,  three,  or  more 
tones  of  color  were  placed  one  on  top  of  the 
other,  and  the  presence  of  each  tone  and  color 
was  felt  in  a  soft,  mysterious,  blended  whole. 
In  his  latest  method  the  colors  were  indis- 
criminately and  heavily  mixed  in  the  final 
brush  stroke.  What,  in  the  Palma  descrip- 
tion, the  tone  of  the  red  and  yellow  could 
have  been,  can  remain  only  a  matter  of  specu- 
lation. The  early  habit  of  giving  the  first 
paintings  a  very  cold  appearance  for  the  after 
99 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

warmer  veils  and  glazes  would  inevitably 
cause  him  to  use  his  four  colors  of  such  a  kind 
and  manner  as  to  produce  a  very  cool  effect, 
even  if  yellow  were  present  with  the  red.  Now, 
no  red  ochre  or  red  earth  known  to  us,  with 
an  equal-keyed  yellow,  as  yellow  ochre,  would, 
used  in  the  ordinary  manner,  produce  a  cool 
first  painting  that  would  be  of  any  use  at  all  as 
a  dead  color,  for  a  glaze  of  the  same  color  as 
the  paint  on  which  it  is  placed  is  of  no  value. 
The  effect  is  only  to  increase  the  quantity  of 
paint,  so  we  are  forced  to  assume  that  the  red 
was  of  a  different  shade,  and  also  the  yellow ; 
that  is,  both  of  a  much  cooler  tendency.  The 
red,  as  Palma  said,  was  a  "  pure  red  earth," 
and  was  probably  the  ancient  sinopia ;  the  yel- 
low, a  color  somewhat  like  a  fine  yellow  ochre 
keyed  up  with  a  very  small  bit  of  some  fine, 
strong,  yellow,  like  cadmium  and  white  for 
instance.  These  three  colors  then — white,  red, 
yellow,  with  blue-black  as  the  fourth  should 
give  the  necessarily  cool  first  painting  that 
approaches  closely  to  the  final  appearance  the 
100 


THREE  COLORS 

flesh  is  to  have,  and  comes  nearer  to  the  first 
paintings  that  Rubens  employed,  which  were 
far  less  cold  and  heavy  than  the  ' '  dead  color- 
ing ' '  of  the  Pesaro  Madonna  study,  yet  main- 
tained enough  of  the  silvery  grays  to  enable 
a  placing  thereon  of  still  warmer  finishing 
touches. 


101 


CHAPTER   VIII 

TITIAN'S  PRINCIPLES  UNCHANGED 

MY  own  opinion,  after  much  thought,  study, 
and  analysis,  is  that  the  Palma-Boschini  de- 
scription does  not  mean  exactly  what  it  ap- 
pears to  say.  An  artist  like  Titian,  who  prac- 
tices constantly  nearly  forty-five  years  in  one 
system  of  painting,  the  results  of  which  have 
brought  him  wealth  and  fame  unheard  of  be- 
fore in  the  world's  history,  is  not  likely  to 
make  any  radical  change.  The  change  in  his 
technic  is  said  to  have  occurred  in  about  his 
seventieth  year,  and  in  the  natural  order  of 
things  most  men  would  have  no  technic  left 
at  all  at  that  age;  but  Titian  had  a  fine  phy- 
sique, and  so  he  kept  right  on.  Still,  his  work 
shows  the  threescore-and-ten  mark,  and  I  am 
sure  his  eyesight  was  not  as  it  had  been  in  his 
102 


TITIAN'S  PRINCIPLES   UNCHANGED 

younger  days,  nor  was  it  to  be  expected  that 
the  man  of  seventy  or  more  should  have  the 
strength  or  vitality  necessary  to  paint  the 
more  delicate  coloring  on  the  completed  dead- 
color  base.  It  was  inevitable  that  there  should 
have  been  a  change,  and  what  more  natural 
than  that  the  part  of  the  painting  which  re- 
quired the  finest  eyesight  and  the  steadiest 
hand  should  become  coarser,  thicker,  lose  its 
definite  character  to  some  extent  and  become 
somewhat  vague? 

Therefore  I  am  convinced  that  the  Palma- 
Boschini  description  was  intended  to  convey 
the  impression  of  the  use  of  the  foundation 
color  without  the  yellow.  I  have  seen  a  num- 
ber of  English,  German,  and  French  transla- 
tions of  the  Palma-Boschini  description,  and 
no  two  convey  the  same  impression ;  and  even 
some  Italian  writers  gave  different  versions  of 
what  was  actually  done.  The  writers  are 
generally  ignorant  of  technical  matters,  and 
the  artists  are  unable  to  express  themselves 
with  clearness.  Now,  if  we  take  that  part  of 
8  103 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

the  Palma-Boschini  description,  as  follows: 
"  Titian  based  his  pictures  with  such  a  mass 
of  color  that  it  served  as  a  base  to  build  on 
after — the  first  penciling  with  a  full  brush 
and  thick,  heavy  color,  the  half  tones  in  pure 
red  earth,  the  lights  with  white,  etc."  Thus 
far  the  description  would  fit  the  study  of  the 
Pesaro  Madonna,  for  instance ;  and  if  we  were 
sure  that  at  this  juncture  he  put  his  work 
aside  for  a  thorough  drying,  assuming  it  was 
advanced  enough  to  be  correct  in  form  and 
modeling,  we  would  be  sure  we  had  a  very  good 
description  of  his  manner  and  principle  of 
work,  for  the  expression  which  follows,  ' '  then 
broken  with  the  same  brush  with  red,  black, 
and  yellow,"  would  describe  the  logical  se- 
quence exactly.  In  my  judgment  that  is  what 
Palma  meant  to  convey,  and  this  is  what  must 
have  followed  if  there  was  any  truth  in  the 
first  of  the  Titian  sayings  reported  by  this 
same  Palma  and  this  same  Boschini,  before 
quoted  and  repeated  here — "  He  who  would 
be  a  painter  needs  to  know  but  three  colors, 
104 


TITIAN'S  PRINCIPLES  UNCHANGED 

white,  black,  and  red,  and  to  have  them  well  in 
hand  ('  haverli  in  man  ')."  That  this  was  a 
true  saying  of  Titian's  I  believe,  for  his  work 
coincides  with  it,  and  that  there  is  an  unin- 
tentional mystification  in  the  words  "  then 
broken  with  the  same  brush,"  for  that  con- 
veys the  idea  that  the  preceding  work  was 
still  wet,  and  that  with  the  same  brush  more 
wet  color,  of  which  yellow  was  a  part,  was 
then  incorporated  into  the  red,  white  (and 
black)  "  dead  coloring,"  which,  of  course, 
effectually  destroyed  it  as  "  dead  color." 
Then,  again,  we  must  not  forget  the  second 
Titian-Palma-Boschini  saying,  "  to  arrive  at 
lifelike  flesh  tint  the  carnation  should  not  be 
finished  alia  prima,  but  different  tints  should 
l)e  laid  one  over  the  other."  As  I  have  before 
explained,  if  yellow  is  admitted  into  a  ' '  dead 
color  "  or  first  painting  every  quality  that  is 
absolutely  necessary  for  a  ' '  dead  coloring ' '  is 
lost — namely,  luminosity  and  a  suitably  cold 
contrasting  tone.  There  is  no  logic,  no  sci- 
ence, no  beauty,  and  no  "  lifelike  flesh  tint." 
105 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

If  those  colors  containing  yellow  and  red, 
and  necessarily  alike  in  character,  are  placed 
one  over  the  other  the  results  are  far  dif- 
ferent and  very  inferior  to  that  mysterious 
beauty  obtained  by  a  judicious  use  of  the 
"  dead  color."  There  is  a  blending  and  yet 
a  strong  contrast  that  only  the  superimposi- 
tion,  ' '  or  laying  one  over  the  other, ' '  of  colors 
that  are  transparent  can  give.  Then,  again, 
Titian  himself  said  emphatically,  "  the  car- 
nation should  not  be  finished  alia  prima, 
but  different  tints  laid  one  over  the  other." 
With  the  proper  "  dead  color  "  your  cold 
silvery  red  or  violet  is  underneath,  and  the 
warmer,  less  pronounced  reds  and  yellows  laid 
over  them  in  gradations  advancing  to  the 
proper  warmth  and  wealth  of  color  that  na- 
ture has.  I  believe  that  the  preponderance 
of  evidence,  as  the  judges  say,  is  in  favor  of 
my  interpretation,  and  that  we  must  assume 
that  Titian 's  work  was  done  on  the  same  prin- 
ciple throughout  his  life,  though  not  so  well 
toward  the  end.  There  were  times  long  after 
106 


TITIAN'S  PRINCIPLES  UNCHANGED 

1545  or  1550,  when  the  change  in  manner  first 
became  apparent,  when  paintings  came  from 
his  studio  that  had  the  same  style  of  handling, 
definition,  color,  etc.,  that  his  early  work  had. 
But  we  must  not  forget  that  his  son  Orazio, 
his  brother  Francesco,  and  that  mysteri- 
ous and  industrious  relative  Cesare  Vecellio 
worked  in  his  studio  and  may  have  been  able 
to  produce  under  Titian 's  direction  more  care- 
ful work  than  he  was  capable  of  doing  himself 
at  that  age.  They  had  been  trained  by  him 
for  many  years,  and  knew  his  manner  and 
technic,  and  it  was  to  their  financial  interest 
to  imitate  Titian's  manner  as  nearly  as  possi- 
ble, since  they  could  never  have  hoped  to  sell 
their  work  as  well  (or  rival  Titian)  with  their 
own  signatures  in  the  corners  of  their  pic- 
tures as  they  could  with  the  magic  ' '  Titianus 
Fecit  "  there. 

Titian    had    the    reputation    of    jealously 

guarding    his    methods    and    practice.      His 

studio  was  a  sort  of  family  art  corporation. 

We  know  from  undisputed  facts  that  at  least 

107 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

three  men  helped  him  in  his  studio  in  every 
phase  of  his  work,  from  the  various  arduous 
manual  labors  to  drawing  and  painting.  His 
relative,  Cesare  Vecellio,  helped  him  publicly 
in  Innsbruck,  in  October,  1548,  by  painting 
and  sketching  three  of  the  seven  portraits  of 
the  daughters  of  the  Emperor  Ferdinand,  a 
feat  they  both  performed  in  the  exceedingly 
short  time  of  seventeen  days!  And  Titian 
was  seventy-one  years  of  age  at  the  time! 
They  must  have  had  a  very  good  method  of 
work,  and  excepting  only  the  one  account — 
and  that  the  version  that  Palma-Boschini  have 
handed  down  the  corridors  of  time,  and  which 
is  secondhand  at  that — there  is  no  description 
of  his  method  or  practice,  not  even  any  sec- 
ondhand or  hearsay  that  carries  the  slightest 
evidence  of  having  even  a  grain  of  fact. 

The  impression  made  by  reading  Titian's 
many  letters  shows  the  great  artist  dunning 
delinquent  kings,  tricky,  dishonorable  nobles, 
and  insisting  on  his  very  well  earned  pay,  and 
for  which  some  historians  and  others  have 
108 


TITIAN'S  PRINCIPLES  UNCHANGED 

presumed  to  call  him  avaricious  and  even 
mean.  These  letters  stamp  his  character  in 
worldly  matters  as  being  that  of  a  cautious, 
careful  man.  He  had  to  make  his  way  at  first 
against  powerful  rivals,  and  all  his  life  his 
work  had  to  maintain  its  superiority  against 
very  able  men,  and  before  his  sun  had  set, 
that  of  Paul  Veronese  and  the  aggressive 
Tintoretto  had  risen.  There  is  no  evidence 
that  he  was  on  very  intimate  terms  with  any 
other  artist  outside  his  own  family  except, 
possibly,  Paul  Veronese,  whom  he  assisted  to 
the  unusual  extent  of  publicly  recommending 
as  against  Tintoretto  for  some  important  work 
toward  the  end  of  his  own  life.  This  may 
have  been  a  little  politics,  since  Tintoretto 
lowered  himself  and  his  art  by  doing  public 
work  for  nearly  no  compensation,  and  we 
know  that  Titian  had  a  quarrel  with  his  best 
friend,  Pietro  Aretino,  on  Tintoretto's  ac- 
count. Whatever  may  have  been  the  cause 
for  the  change  in  technic  at  the  latter  end  of 
Titian 's  life — be  it  haste,  failing  strength,  eye- 
109 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

sight,  or  impatience  at  the  necessary  delays 
for  drying  when  he  employed  his  "  Venetian 
Method"  or  manner — his  powerful  young  com- 
petitors, Paul  Veronese,  Tintoretto,  and  the 
Bassanos,  have  not  followed  him  in  his  change 
of  technic ;  they  clung  to  the  Venetian  Method, 
and  time  has  justified  their  choice,  for  of  all 
Titian's  work,  that  showing  the  characteristics 
of  this  method  is  certainly  the  most  beautiful, 
and  its  durability  in  comparison  to  any  other 
manner  cannot  be  questioned. 

Going  back  again  to  our  researches,  we  meet 
with  indications  of  what  we  are  in  search  of 
in  a  description,  secondhand  though  it 
Veronese  *s>  °^  ^e  principle  governing  Paul  Ver- 
onese's technical  methods  of  work.  We 
must  keep  in  mind  the  friendly  relations  be- 
tween Veronese  and  Titian  personally,  that 
Veronese  had  earned  Titian's  respect  as  an 
artist,  and  also  the  very  great  quality  and 
beautiful  coloring  of  Veronese's  pictures, 
peculiar  to  him  individually. 

The  description  given  by  Boschini,  and  by 
110 


TITIAN'S  PRINCIPLES  UNCHANGED 

him  obtained  from  Veronese 's  son,  relates  that 
"  he  painted  everything  first  in  middle  tint, 
and  on  this  he  touched  both  lights  and  darks, 
leaving  the  middle  tint  visible  everywhere  be- 
tween them,  as  it  was  first  prepared.  The 
middle  tint  was  laid  in  opaque  color."  Let 
us  examine  closely  what  we  have  here  in  the 
words,  "  he  painted  everything  in  opaque 
middle  tint  first."  What  would  an  artist  call 
"  middle  tint  "  in  flesh?  Viewing  a  head  in 
a  studio  light  we  are  forced  to  conclude  that 
the  predominant  or  "  middle  tint  "  is  a  red- 
dish or  violet  silvery  tone,  and  this  has  a 
transparent  covering  of  warmer  tones,  leaning 
first  to  the  warmer  reds,  then  to  the  still 
warmer  yellowish  or  golden.  We  have  a 
foundation  coloring  or  ' '  middle  tint  ' '  of  our 
own,  made  up  of  white,  black,  and  red,  and  our 
' '  middle  tint  "  or  "  dead  color  ' '  is  also  paint- 
ed in  opaque  color,  so  our  theory  of  practice 
is  founded  on  a  close  observation  of  nature, 
a  close  analysis  of  the  works  of  the  Great 
Masters,  and  thus  coincides  exactly  with  the 
111 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

description — given  by  the  junior  Veronese  to 
Boschini — of  the  elder  Veronese's  technical 
method.  It  further  fits  in  completely  with 
methods  described  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  in 
his  private  diaries,  and  of  which  I  will  speak 
more  in  detail  later  on.  A  foundation  tint  of 
red,  white,  and  black  is  the  only  construction 
of  the  words  ' '  middle  tint  ' '  that  will  give  us 
technical  success.  Success  by  the  use  of  the 
black,  white,  and  red  middle  tint  in  various 
degrees  has  been  attained  magnificently  by 
Reynolds. 

If,  therefore,  we  admit  yellow  to  the  ' '  mid- 
dle tint, ' '  it  will  then  be  no  middle  tint  in  fact, 
as  the  admission  of  yellow  robs  it  of  every 
beauty,  system,  or  logic,  and  reduces  the  meth- 
od to  the  level  of  an  ordinary  modern  method, 
with  modern  results  and  modern  effects. 
With  yellow  in  the  first  middle  tint,  the  sci- 
ence, logic,  and  beauty  of  superimposition,  or 
laying  one  tint  over  the  other,  is  lost.  With 
the  yellow,  the  beauty  obtained  by  placing  one 
semitransparent  color  on  a  heavy-bodied  light 
112 


TITIAN'S  PRINCIPLES  UNCHANGED 

tone,  and  a  very  thin  tone  as  a  final  glaze,  is  lost. 
With  yellow  in  the  first  painting  the  labor  is 
increased,  the  unity  of  the  flesh  is  lost,  the  final 
effects  are  chance  effects,  and  the  artistic  prob- 
lem is  made  much  more  difficult.  The  attempt 
to  systematize  the  process  with  a  middle  tint  or 
dead  coloring  that  contains  yellow  has  never 
been  a  success,  and  the  stability  of  its  finished 
appearance  is  very  questionable.  With  a  good 
middle  tint  or  foundation  color,  the  chance 
of  placing  a  dark  tone  where  there  is  finally 
to  be  a  light  one,  a  warm  tone  where  there  is 
finally  to  be  a  cold,  is  reduced  to  a  minimum. 
With  the  yellow  in  the  first  foundation,  we 
preclude  the  cool  luminosity  which  a  painting 
needs  as  it  gets  old,  more  transparent,  a  trifle 
darker,  and  a  trifle  yellower.  With  a  dead 
coloring  without  yellow  the  lighter,  faintly 
purplish  middle  tint  or  dead  coloring  shines 
through  and  counteracts  the  tendency  of  dry- 
ing and  age.  Here  we  note  the  difference  be- 
tween Rubens  and  Veronese — Rubens 's  work 
as  a  whole  being  more  golden  and  lighter  in 
113 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

key,  while  Veronese's  work  is  a  trifle  darker 
and  has  a  more  faintly  purplish  hue. 

Returning  to  the  Veronese-Bosch ini  descrip- 
tion, and  the  paragraph — "  and  on  this  he 
touched  both  lights  and  darks,  leaving  the 
middle  tint  visible  everywhere  between  them 
as  it  was  first  prepared," — the  only  interpre- 
tation of  this  paragraph  is  that  as  in  the  fin- 
ished picture  the  "  middle  tint  was  visible 
everywhere,"  it  follows  that  the  "  lights  and 
darks  "  placed  thereon  were  necessarily  thin 
and  transparent,  and  that  the  first  painting, 
"  middle  tint,"  or  "  dead  color,"  was  neces- 
sarily heavy  and  thick  of  body  and  much  cold- 
er in  color,  to  give  the  contrast  and  make  its 
presence  felt. 

Rubens  must  have  used  a  lighter,  less  pur- 
ple red  in  his  first  foundation  than  Veronese, 
and  we  see  that  he  was  very  sparing  of 
ki8  shadows.  His  first  painting  alto- 
gether had  less  actual  body,  consequent- 
ly there  was  not  so  much  of  it  "  to  come 
through  "  afterwards,  and  in  turn  permitted 
114 


TITIAN'S  PRINCIPLES  UNCHANGED 

the  white  ground  to  have  a  greater  influence 
in  elevating  the  key  of  light.  The  more 
golden  tone  of  his  pictures  is  caused  by  the 
warm  umber  veil,  and  the  milder  use  of  the 
first  silvery  violet  or  purplish  dead-color 
foundation.  From  what  we  know  of  Rubens 
we  must  conclude  that  h,e-  did  not  main- 
tain much  secrecy  about  his  work,  and  had 
many  pupils.  On  the  other  hand,  only  one  of 
them,  Van  Dyck,  seems  to  have  had  his  entire 
confidence,  and  his  work  viewed  from  the  tech- 
nical standpoint,  though  showing  a  different 
individuality  and  a  much  colder  tendency  in 
color,  is  technically  just  as  fine  and  every  bit 
as  durable  and  beautiful.  Van  Dyck's  early 
work  shows  of  course  the  Rubens  technic  in 
a  pronounced  golden,  final  effect.  Very  likely 
at  that  time  he  had  made  use  of  the  same 
ground  and  veil,  and  the  same  red  in  the 
foundation  color.  When  he  went  to  Italy  it 
became  at  once  apparent  that  the  stronger  red 
of  Titian's  "  dead  color  "  appealed  to  him, 
was  adopted  and  used  in  many  pictures  and 
115 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

portraits.  This  red  became  so  conspicuous  in 
some  of  them  as  to  be  almost  a  blemish,  and, 
so  to  speak,  not  a  case  of  "  haverli  in  man," 
having  well  in  hand,  as  Titian  used  to  say. 
However,  he  must  have  realized  that  it  was 
getting  beyond  control,  and  so  he  dropped  the 
"  Van  Dyck  Red  "  very  suddenly  and  adopt- 
ed a  tri-color  of  his  own,  which  was  more 
silvery,  natural,  and  beautiful. 


116 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE    METHOD    INVISIBLE 

IT  seems  proper  before  leaving  this  subject 
of  ' '  dead  color, "  ' '  foundation  color, ' '  or  the 
"  Venetian  Secret,"  as  Reynolds  called  it,  to 
add  that  flesh  painted  thus  very  rarely  shows 
a  brush  mark,  the  result  being  there,  and  not 
in  the  least  indicating  the  method.  It  may 
be  done  powerfully  or  weakly.  It  only  shows 
strongly  that  it  is  not  done  in  the  ordinary 
modern  alia  prima  manner,  and  many  an 
artist  has  stood  before  an  Old  Master  and 
had  the  same  feeling  we  have  when  a  master 
in  legerdemain  has  done  a  surprising  and  mys- 
terious trick  before  our  eyes ;  that  there  is  no 
wizardry  about  it  we  know,  yet  it  escapes  a 
logical  explanation. 

The  seemingly  insoluble  mystery  that  envel- 

117 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

oped  the  Old  Masters'  method  for  so  many 
years  was  caused  mainly  by  the  fact  that  while 
the  modern  artist  paints  with  all  his  power 
and  skill  what  he  sees,  the  Old  Master  with 
his  red,  white,  and  black  did  not  attempt  to 
render  all  that  he  saw  before  him;  he  first 
made  a  translation  or  "  dead  coloring,"  and 
then  gave  it  life.  Technically  the  Old  Master 
wrought  as  much  with  his  mind  as  with  his 
eye  and  hand,  and  when  you  come  to  under- 
stand and  compare  his  method  with  that  of  the 
modern  painter  you  will  be  amazed  at  and 
cannot  help  admiring  the  ingenuity,  simplic- 
ity, and  durability  of  his  technic.  It  is  so 
simple  and  ingenious  that  it  is  no  wonder  it 
has  practically  remained  a  secret  for  nearly 
four  centuries. 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  gave  fifteen  public  dis- 
courses or  lectures  on  art,  and  wrote  much  on 
the  same  subject.     The  discourses  were 

Sir  Joa  ua     technical  and  intended  to  teach,  but  in 
Reynolds 

all  his  public  utterances  there  is  not  one 
hint  of  that  of  which  his  diaries  were  full 
118 


THE  METHOD  INVISIBLE 

when  found  after  his  death.  His  diaries 
prove  that  his  mind  was  constantly  occupied 
with  technical  problems,  and  it  is  very  likely 
that  had  he  been  absolutely  certain  as  to  a 
method  and  mediums  he  would  have  made  it 
public  before  he  died.  He  did  say  the  ancients 
were  great,  if  only  because  they  painted  with 
four  colors.  He  may  have  thought  that  if  he 
hinted  anything  about  the  technical  researches 
and  experiments  he  was  making,  the  young 
students  would  forget  to  learn  how  to  draw, 
model,  paint,  or  see  color;  and  further,  that 
some  of  his  very  able  contemporaries,  like 
Gainsborough  or  Romney,  might  run  him  a 
better  race.  It  seems  probable  Gainsborough 
had  discovered  one  of  the  most  important 
secrets  of  the  Masters  that  Reynolds  never 
learned,  and  which  I  have  not  yet  touched  on 
and  will  speak  of  more  in  detail  later. 

During    his    life    Reynolds    made    many, 

changes  in  his  manner  of  painting.    Most  of 

his  pictures  are  like  dark  ghosts  of  what  they 

must  have  been.    Where  his  first  painting  was 

9  119 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

simply  black  and  white,  some  of  the  remains 
of  his  portraits  suggest  Tintoretto,  because 
they  were  dead-colored  like  his.  If  there  was 
red  in  the  "  dead  color  "  of  his  pictures,  it 
has  often  vanished,  leaving  cold  wrecks,  with 
only  faint  suggestions  of  their  former  beauty. 
In  his  lifetime  Reynolds  heard  complaints 
from  his  patrons  about  the  changes  which  took 
place  in  his  pictures,  and  he  said  in  effect  that 
he  always  did  his  best,  and  that  there  was  no 
one  who  could  teach  him.  In  his  search  for 
the  Masters'  secrets  he  did  not  hesitate  to  rub 
down  an  Old  Master  to  see  what  the  method 
of  procedure  was.  He  produced  many  beauti- 
ful and  thoroughly  English  portraits,  and  his 
practice,  in  principle,  was  founded  on  the 
methods  of  the  Masters ;  but  his  vehicle  or  me- 
dium, employed  from  about  1755  to  the  end 
of  his  life,  was  never  entirely  logical  or 
durable. 

This,  of  course,  with  a  very  few  exceptions. 
The  pictures  produced  were  very  fine  to  look 
at  for  a  time — immediately  after  being  fin- 
120 


THE  METHOD  INVISIBLE 

ished — but  alas !  they  did  not  stay  as  intended. 
His  error  was  the  theory  that  the  beauty  of 
the  Masters'  color  was  produced  by  the  use 
of  a  varnish  medium,  to  which,  perforce,  he 
was  compelled  to  add  wax  to  enable  a  sufficient 
freedom  of  handling,  and  possibly  with  the 
idea,  too,  of  providing  a  protection  to  the  color. 
He  held  fast  to  this  theory  all  his  life,  but 
never  was  there  a  feeling  of  absolute  security 
in  its  infallibility,  as  is  so  conclusively  proved 
by  his  continual  use  of  every  conceivable  com- 
bination or  mixture.  No  sooner  did  he  make 
note  of  having  the  real  thing,  than  another 
would  be  tried,  necessarily,  because  he  would 
discover  the  first  not  to  be  that  which  he  was 
in  search  of.  He  had  no  Masters'  traditions 
to  guide  him.  He  was  a  pioneer,  a  Columbus 
without  a  pilot,  sailing  the  seas  trying  to  dis- 
cover the  Old  Masters '  elixir  of  creation — but 
he  never  found  it ;  yet  like  Columbus  he  found 
much  else,  both  good  and  bad.  In  one  of  his 
memorandum  books  he  states  that  he  "  dead- 
colored  "  or  founded  his  pictures,  at  that  time 
121 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

(July,  1766),  with  blue-black,  lake,  and  white 
— and  probably  in  most  cases,  without  his 
suspecting  it,  the  lake  was  very  fugitive. 
In  September  of  the  same  year  he  proves 
that  he  can  do  without  the  lake  in  the  first 
foundation,  for  this  brief  note  appears, 
' '  Lake,  yellow  ochre,  and  ult.  Dead  col.  with- 
out lake  Probatum  Sept.  1766."  Yes,  he 
proved  it  as  far  as  the  production  goes,  but 
tune  was  an  evil  enemy  to  the  black-and-white 
'  *  dead  color, ' '  for  it  is  bound  to  appear  sooner 
or  later  and  injure  the  color,  light,  and  har- 
mony. 

Then,  at  another  time,  according  to  his  own 
diary,  he  falls  into  the  other  extreme  of  chilli- 
ness, as,  for  instance,  this  note  in  his  own 
Italian:  "Jan.  22,  1770.  Sono  stabilito  in 
maniere  di  dipingere,  primo  e  secondo  o  con 
olio,  o  capivi,  gli  colori  solo  nero,  ultram,  e 
biacca,  secondo  medisimo,  ultimo  con  giallo 
okero  e  lacca  e  nero  e  ultramarine  senza  biacca 
ritoccato  con  poco  biacca  e  gli  altri  colori." 
That  is:  "I  am  settled  in  my  manner  of 
122 


THE  METHOD  INVISIBLE 

painting;  first  and  second  either  with  oil  or 
copaiba,  the  colors  only  black,  ultramarine, 
and  white ;  second  the  same ;  last,  with  yellow 
ochre  and  lake  and  black  and  ultramarine 
without  white,  retouched  with  a  little  white 
and  the  other  colors."  He  was  then  forty- 
seven  years  old.  The  natural  inference,  from 
the  words  "  I  am  settled  in  my  manner  of 
painting,"  is  that  he  thought  he  had  found 
the  ' '  Venetian  Secret  ' '  of  dead  coloring  with 
a  suitable  medium.  The  foundation  coloring 
was  so  very  cold,  that  except  perhaps  in  cases 
of  outdoor  portraits  —  like  Van  Dyck's  of 
Charles  I  with  the  attendants,  horse,  and  land- 
scape, now  in  the  Louvre  at  Paris — he  soon 
found  it  was  unsuitable  for  studio  portraits, 
and  therefore  a  justifiable  doubt  arose.  The 
foundation  color  of  black,  white,  and  ultra- 
marine is  so  extreme  in  the  cold  that  if  Titian 
or  Rubens  could  have  looked  over  his  shoul- 
der they  would  have  gone  back  to  their  graves 
to  keep  warm. 

It  is  very  probable,  indeed,  that  the  neces- 
123 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

sarily  high  keyed,  very  cold  "  dead  color  " 
underneath  a  fugitive  red,  in  a  very  short  time 
produced  the  effect  of  a  faded  picture.  Al- 
though he  said  he  was  established  in  his  man- 
ner of  painting,  in  less  than  a  month  another 
memorandum,  dated  "  Feb.  6,  1770,"  reads, 
"  Primo  olio  biacca  e  nero,  secondo  biacca  e 
lacca,  terza  capivi  lacca  e  giallo  e  nero,  senza 
biacca."  Here  the  first  painting  is  just  white 
and  black,  and  the  second  painting,  to  bring  in 
the  red,  is  composed  of  white  and  lake;  the 
third,  lake,  yellow,  and  black  without  white. 
He  has  dropped  the  ultramarine,  and  while 
the  process  or  method  is  good  as  far  as  it  goes, 
in  comparison  with  Titian's  or  Veronese's 
manner  it  has  the  very  serious  fault  of  black 
and  white  instead  of  a  color  foundation.  The 
introduction  of  red  in  the  first  painting  estab- 
lishes it  as  a  work  of  color  and  helps  the  paint- 
ing, as  time  passes  and  reveals  the  ground 
more,  to  maintain  its  color  effect. 

Soon  after  he  falls  into  the  use  of  colors  and 
mediums  that  insure  destruction  to  his  work. 
124 


THE  METHOD  INVISIBLE 

The  variety  of  material  and  method  is  remark- 
able ;  but  as  most  of  it  was  injurious,  it  will 
serve  no  purpose  to  go  over  it  all  here.  But 
in  November,  1773,  we  have  this  note  in  his 
diary,  "  Dr.  Barnard,  1st  black  and  white 
2d  vermilion  and  white  dry.  3d  varnished 
and  retouched. ' '  Here,  although  we  still  have 
the  pernicious  black  and  white,  we  have  also  a 
return  to  the  vermilion  and  a  dropping  of  the 
questionable  lake.  Then  follows  another  re- 
lapse into  bad  colors  and  worse  mediums,  so 
far  as  his  diaries  show.  In  August,  1779,  we 
have  another  entry,  showing  a  return  to  the 
safe  and  durable,  but  so  far  as  the  medium 
is  concerned,  still  on  the  false  theory :  ' '  Aug. 
1779  Hope,  my  own  copy,  first  oil,  then  Venice 
T.  cera.  verm,  white  and  black,  poi  varnished 
with  Venice  and  cera,  Light  red  and  black, 
thickly  varnished."  This  indicates  still  the 
black  and  white  in  oil,  and  alas !  then  the  use 
of  Venice  turpentine  and  wax,  with  his  thin 
semitransparent  layer  of  vermilion,  white, 
and  black,  then  varnished  with  the  same  me- 
125 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

dium  and  probably  with  a  light  red  and  black, 
and  then  thickly  varnished. 

Of  course  this  is  not  good,  but  it  has  one 
compensation,  and  that  is  the  introduction  of 
light  red,  a  cheap,  durable,  and,  lastly,  a 
beautiful  color.  To  get  the  thin,  light  red 
glaze  effect,  he  was  no  longer  compelled  to 
resort  to  such  combinations  as  gamboge  and 
lake  or  gamboge  and  vermilion  with  varnish. 
Now  we  come  to  one  of  his  latest  diary 
entries,  dated  1781,  eleven  years  before  his 
death,  and  in  the  same  year  as  his  journey  to 
Flanders  and  Holland :  "1781.  Manner,  Col- 
ors to  be  used  Indian  red,  light  red,  blue  and 
black,  finished  with  varnish  senza  olio  poi  re- 
tocc,  con  giallo  "  (finished  with  varnish  with- 
out oil,  then  retouched  with  yellow). 

This  use  of  the  abbreviated  Italian  still 
indicated  his  desire  for  secrecy.  The  presence 
of  Indian  red — the  cold,  durable  oxide  of  iron 
— is  a  great  gain,  and  in  the  Reynolds  portrait 
of  "  Two  Gentlemen,"  in  the  National  Gal- 
lery at  London,  the  Indian  red  is  "  visible 
126 


THE   METHOD  INVISIBLE 

everywhere,"  as  Veronese  would  have  said; 
and,  as  in  some  of  Paul  Veronese's  paintings, 
just  a  trifle  too  noticeable.  This  is  said,  of 
course,  with  portraits  by  Van  Dyck,  Rubens, 
Velasquez,  and  Titian  in  mind,  and  I  suspect 
that  the  Indian  red  has  become  stronger  than 
as  first  painted  by  Reynolds.  Its  presence  in 
the  "  dead  color  "  is  visible  in  some  of  Paul 
Veronese's  work,  not  unpleasantly,  but  still 
an  unintended  flush,  perhaps. 

Titian  said,  be  it  recalled,  "  He  who  would 
be  a  painter  needs  to  know  but  three  colors, 
white,  black,  and  red,  and  to  have  them  well 
in  hand  ('  haverli  in  man  ')."  In  none  of  the 
entries  in  his  diary,  except  in  the  very  early 
ones  up  to  about  1755,  did  Reynolds  in  any 
way  suggest  that  he  used  a  yellow  again  in 
the  first  paintings  or  "  dead  color,"  and  we 
are  practically  certain  that  the  ' '  Venetian  Se- 
cret ' '  method  of  preparing  a  bed  of  dead  col- 
oring "  to  build  on,"  of  black  and  white,  brok- 
en with  red  more  or  less,  has  been  practiced 
by  him  for  over  thirty  years!  It  is  doubt- 
127 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

fill  if  Titian  ever  voluntarily  parted  with 
any  of  his  studio  secrets,  yet  Paul  Veronese 
seems  to  have  succeeded  in  getting  possession 
of  the  dead-coloring  principle,  and  another  se- 
cret of  the  medium,  or  vehicle,  of  still  greater 
value.  Reynolds  seems  almost  to  have  taken 
his  secret  to  the  grave  with  him,  as  far  as  his 
immediate  contemporaries  and  successors  are 
concerned — Northcote  and  Beechey  excepted. 
Northcote  was  such  a  feeble  reflection  of  his 
master  that  he  need  not  be  considered  here. 
Beechey 's  work,  however,  shows  the  influence 
of  Reynolds 's  dead-color  method  attractively. 
Not  long  before  Reynolds  died,  J.  M.  W. 
Turner,  the  great  English  landscape  painter, 
while  still  a  pupil  of  the  Royal  Academy 
of  London,  had  access  to  Reynolds 's 
house,  and  painted  from  the  great  artist's 
pictures,  undoubtedly  saw  unfinished  work 
occasionally,  and  being,  as  we  know,  a  close 
observer  and  a  logical  reasoner,  he  in  time 
studied  out  a  ' '  Venetian  Method  ' '  of  his  own 
that  was  perfectly  adapted  to  landscape.  He 
128 


THE  METHOD   INVISIBLE 

of  course  left  out  the  red  in  the  first  bed  of 
color,  making  use  of  white,  blue,  and  blue 
black,  three  colors.  The  many  Venetian  sunset 
pictures  show  this  plainly,  and  most  strik- 
ingly is  this  indicated  in  the  picture  "  Grand 
Canal,"  in  the  New  York  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum. The  luminosity  of  this  picture,  with  its 
high  key  of  color,  can  be  obtained  in  no  other 
way.  One  can  only  speculate  as  to  what  Tur- 
ner might  have  accomplished  had  he  had  a  tal- 
ent for  drawing  and  painting  the  figure,  as, 
although  he  made  an  attempt  at  figure  paint- 
ing, he  soon  gave  it  up  as  not  his  forte. 

Among  the  successors  of  Reynolds,  one  who 
in  some  way  or  other  obtained  a  knowledge 
of  his  technical  principles  and  methods, 
.and  who   practiced  them  with  consid- 
erable technical  success  most  of  his  life,  was 
William  Etty,  R.A.    It  took  him  many  years  to 
learn  them,  but  when  he  had  them  well  in  hand 
he  turned  out  some  fine  color  harmonies.    We 
know  Etty  traveled  abroad  and  studied  the 
Masters  in  Italy,  yet  probably  the  principles 
129 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

of  the  "  Venetian  Secret  "  were  well  under- 
stood by  him  before  he  left  England.  His 
principles  of  "  dead  color  "  and  after-methods 
were  nearly  as  good  as  any,  and  were,  as  de- 
scribed in  his  own  words,  as  follows :  ' '  Reso- 
lution. First  night,  correctly  draw  and  out- 
line the  figure  only.  Second  night,  carefully 
paint  in  the  figure  with  black  and  white  and 
Indian  red,  for  instance.  The  next,  having 
secured  with  copal,  glaze,  and  then  scumble  in 
the  bloom.  Glaze  into  the  shadows  and  touch 
on  the  lights  carefully,  and  it  is  done. ' '  Etty 
probably  never  heard  of  the  Veronese-Boschini 
description  of  Paul  Veronese's  methods  and 
manner,  and  yet  how  very  much  alike  they  are ! 
In  explanation  of  the  description  of  his 
method,  it  must  be  noted  that  he  painted  many 
of  his  nudes  by  gaslight  in  the  evening  life 
classes  of  the  Royal  Academy,  even  after  he 
became  an  R.A.  But,  alas  for  posterity!  he 
did  not  give  his  work  the  final  technical  treat- 
ment that  was  necessary  to  make  it  durable, 
and  his  medium  in  the  final  stages  produced  in 
130 


THE   METHOD   INVISIBLE 

time  discoloration,  which  in  turn  makes  the 
owners  of  such  pictures,  be  they  private  par- 
ties or  public  museums,  lay  their  precious 
work  in  the  hands  of  unwise  but  very  confi- 
dent restorers,  who  proceed,  like  some  surgeons 
in  medicine,  to  cut  away  instead  of  curing; 
in  short,  to  remove  all  above  the  dead  col- 
oring !  The  ignorance  of  the  restorer  is  only 
equaled  by  that  of  some  owners.  I  have  seen  a 
portrait  by  Rubens,  a  portrait  by  Van  Dyck, 
and  at  least  two  landscapes  by  Turner  thus 
excoriated  in  public  museums,  where  one 
would  expect  a  scientific  treatment  and  real 
conservation.  If  the  appearance  of  the 
"  skinned  "  picture  is  not  agreeable  to  their 
sense  of  harmony,  or  is  liable  to  cause  com- 
ment, they  give  it  a  new  epidermis,  and  gen- 
erally it  consists  of  a  golden-brown  varnish, 
the  very  worst  thing.  And  then  the  public 
comes  in  and  innocently  wonders  why  "  the 
old  pictures  are  invariably  so  dark." 

Before    leaving    this    subject    of    "  dead 
color,"  or  color  bed,  I  would  warn  those  who 
131 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

have  never  tried  it  before,  not  to  fall  into 
extremes.  It  is  very  fascinating,  and  should 
always  be  kept ' '  soft  and  broad, ' '  as  Reynolds 
says.  The  guiding  principle  should  be  that 
the  silver  grays  should  be  in  the  first  paint- 
ing, whether  done  in  red,  white,  and  black,  or 
red,  white,  black,  and  yellow,  or  any  other 
way — and  there  are  many  other  ways.  Each 
artist's  genius,  individuality,  refinement,  eye 
for  color,  etc.,  should  have  perfect  freedom. 
The  knowledge  and  use  of  this  method  is  not 
going  to  make  of  an  artist  a  Reynolds,  Van 
Dyck,  Rubens,  Veronese,  Velasquez,  or  Titian 
— in  short,  a  Master — unless  there  is  a  master- 
ly ability  to  think,  the  vitality  and  energy  to 
do;  but  every  artist  should  bear  in  mind  that 
there  is  no  wizardry  about  it  all.  Titian  was 
addressed  as  the  ' '  King  of  Artists, ' '  and  was 
supposed  to  have  rendered  the  utmost  possible ; 
yet  immediately,  as  it  were,  Paul  Veronese 
gave  the  world  new  great  things;  Velasquez 
gave  us  his  wonders;  Rubens,  in  face  of  all 
the  glories  of  Titian  and  Veronese,  gave  us  a 
132 


THE  METHOD  INVISIBLE 

whole  line  of  great,  new,  beautiful  work ;  Van 
Dyck's  portraits  can  hold  their  own  silvery 
glory  beside  Titian,  Veronese,  and  Velasquez, 
and,  finally,  Reynolds  gives  us  still  newer  sen- 
sations of  beauty.  As  there  is  an  endless 
variety  to  the  expressions  and  forms  art  may 
take,  this  all  proves  that  we  will  have  still 
other  able  men,  who  will  take  their  places 
in  the  front  rank  of  the  world's  great  artists. 
But  the  combination  of  chances  to  produce 
another  man  to  stand  as  Titian's  equal,  with 
his  busy  long  life  of  ninety-nine  years,  are 
very  slender. 


133 


CHAPTER   X 

THE   TRUE   MEDIUM   OR   VEHICLE 

IN  looking  over  some  technical  memorandum 
books,  I  came  across  a  note  in  one  nearly 
twenty  years  old,  which  says,  "  On  authority 
of  Professor  G Makart  is  said  to  have  com- 
menced his  work  with  oil  mixed  with  the  yolk 
of  an  egg."  It  was  only  a  few  days  before 
reading  this  that  I  had  seen  his  large  picture 
"  Diana's  Hunting  Party."  I  could  not  help 
noticing  at  that  time  that  it  was  cracking  in 
parts  and  turning  yellow;  this  memorandum 
then  immediately  impressed  itself  on  my  mind. 
The  picture  cannot  be  more  than  forty  years 
old,  and,  so  to  speak,  in  its  earliest  infancy. 
As  far  as  the  cracks  are  concerned,  they  may 
or  may  not  have  been  caused  by  the  artist's 
medium,  for  I  have  discovered  that  you  can 
134 


THE  TRUE  MEDIUM   OR  VEHICLE 

make  almost  any  picture  crack.  It  is  well 
known  that  the  white  or  body  tones  of  a  pic- 
ture are  as  a  rule  the  last  to  succumb  to  the  in- 
fluence that  causes  the  cracking.  I  have  found 
by  experiments  on  especially  prepared  tests 
that  the  cracks  can  be  artificially  produced  on 
heavy  body  white  that  has  been  thoroughly 
dried !  So  the  cracks  in  Makart's  picture  may 
or  may  not  be  caused  by  the  "  yolk  of  an 
egg  ' '  mixed  with  the  oil.  I  cite  this  case  out 
of  very  many  where  some  ingredient  or  in- 
gredients are  mixed  with  the  oil  for  some  fan- 
cied benefit.  Makart  may  have  used  the  egg 
yolk,  because  there  is  a  tradition  that  some  of 
the  old  frescoes  had  egg  yolk  mixed  with  the 
colors ;  but  these  colors  also  had  as  the  princi- 
pal medium  a  watery  glue  or  size,  and  not  an 
oil.  There  can  be  no  possible  benefit  from  the 
use  in  this  way  of  the  yolk  of  an  egg  with  oil, 
without  a  far  greater  amount  of  injury.  The 
yolk  of  egg  is  an  animal  substance,  and  the 
oil  a  vegetable;  the  oil  can  dry,  the  egg  can 
only  decay  in  such  a  situation ;  indeed,  I  need 
10  135 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

not  emphasize  the  fact,  too,  that  egg  is  subject 
to  very  rapid  decay.  So  where  is  the  logic, 
or  what  is  the  use?  As  a  coloring  matter? 
Surely  not.  As  a  deadener  of  the  surface,  per- 
haps; but  we  have  better,  more  homogeneous 
things  for  that  purpose  in  spike  oil,  wax, 
spirits  of  turpentine,  or  benzin.  The  egg,  I 
think,  is  more  useful  taken  internally,  and 
should  be  kept  out  of  the  studio. 

Before  going  farther  afield  in  our  search, 
I  would  note  here  the  cause  of  the  vanishing 
glory  of  the  pictures  of  another  of  the  recent 
modern  celebrities,  the  Hungarian  painter 
Michael  Munkacsy.  In  Philip  Gilbert  Hamer- 
ton's  "  Graphic  Arts,"  the  author  says :  "  The 
famous  Hungarian  painter,  Michael  Mun- 
kacsy, has  been  good  enough  to  explain  to  me, 
in  his  own  studio,  all  the  elements  of  his 
method.  He  begins  by  a  rich  brown  mono- 
chrome, with  plenty  of  varnish  on  the  drawing. 
This  monochrome  is  in  itself  a  fine,  well-nour- 
ished, picturesque  sketch,  and  before  it  is  dry 
he  works  into  it  a  second  sketch  in  color;  not 
136 


THE  TRUE  MEDIUM  OR  VEHICLE 

at  all  in  what  we  call  dead  color,  such  as 
Titian  used,  that  is,  with  little  chromatic  in- 
tensity, but  a  play  of  the  most  various  and 
brilliant  color,  from  a  palette  chromatically 
complete,  such  as  a  colorist  would  do  for  him- 
self before  nature,  if  he  had  not  time  to  finish. 
One  of  Munkacsy  's  pictures  at  this  early  stage 
is  a  fine  medley  of  hues,  through  which  you 
may  trace  the  intentions  of  the  artist.  In  sub- 
sequent paintings  he  develops  form  through 
this,  and  brings  the  color  better  together  by 
uniting  it.  He  never  clings  to  lines,  but  con- 
siders nature  as  a  quantity  of  patches  of  light 
and  dark,  and  of  different  hues.  This  is  quite 
essentially  a  painter's  conception."  This  is  a 
good  description  of  the  average  modern  artist's 
technical  proceeding,  "  He  begins  by  a  rich 
brown  monochrome."  The  most  unsophisti- 
cated reader  must  know  by  this  time  what 
happens  from  such  a  beginning ;  it  is  absolute 
poison,  in  time,  to  any  light,  clear  carnation 
tint  placed  over  it.  "  This  monochrome 
is  ...  a  ...  well-nourished  .  .  .  sketch, 
137 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

and  before  it  is  dry  he  works  into  it  a  sec- 
ond sketch  in  color,  .  .  .  not  at  all  ...  dead 
color  such  as  Titian  used,  with  little  chromatic 
intensity,  but  a  play  of  various  and  brilliant 
color."  The  rich  brown  was  well  nourished, 
that  is,  thick  and  strong,  and  had  no  chance 
to  dry  before  another  color  sketch  was  added, 
necessarily  exaggerated,  for  that  is  the  only 
way  to  brilliance  on  thick  browns;  and  later 
on  he  was  forced  to  subdue  the  exaggerations, 
for  he  "  develops  form  "  "  and  brings  the 
color  better  together  by  uniting  it."  Here 
we  have  the  origin  of  the  pitchy  blackness  that 
is  enveloping  Munkacsy's  pictures,  and  the 
result  is  hardly  to  be  wondered  at.  In  fact, 
had  it  been  otherwise,  it  would  be  a  wonder. 
The  "  Milton  and  His  Daughters  "  at  this 
early  day  is  heavy  and  funereal  in  its  black- 
ness, and  visibly  getting  more  so.  Undried 
varnish  and  oil,  with  "  rich  brown  mono- 
chrome ' '  in  the  first  paintings !  It  is  a  pity 
that  so  much  of  the  world's  great  work  should 
become  lost  because  of  a  lack  of  a  few  lucid 
138 


THE  TRUE  MEDIUM  OR  VEHICLE 

technical  elements,  and  sad  to  think  that  pos- 
sibly Makart  as  well  as  Munkacsy  may  have 
realized  the  existence  of  this  canker  in  his 
monumental  work,  and  this  may  have  helped 
to  draw  the  veil  of  insanity  over  the  genius  of 
both  before  they  died.  In  looking  over  many 
descriptions  of  the  manner  and  methods  of 
modern  artists  it  is  a  very  striking  fact  that  no 
two  work  exactly  alike — of  course,  merely  the 
methods  and  material  being  considered.  This 
is  another  proof  of  how  each  one  drifts  into  his 
own  methods  and  materials,  and  that  there  are 
no  sound  traditions.  They  all  seem  to  go  at 
the  production  of  paintings  with  a  naivete  that 
is  remarkable,  each  seeking  the  easiest  and 
quickest  method  possible  to  attain  the  results 
in  view.  The  remark  of  a  chemist  that  the 
"  artists  were  phenomenally  ignorant  of  their 
own  materials,  but  did  not  lack  confidence," 
would  be  humorous  were  it  not  the  sad  truth. 
When  they  do  begin  to  question  and  select 
ways  and  means,  as  some  French,  English,  and 
German  painters  are  doing,  there  becomes  a 
139 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

wide  divergence  of  opinion  and  of  the  manner 
of  procedure,  and  above  all  in  material.  The 
search  when  once  begun  by  earnest  men  be- 
comes serious.  Should  they  lay  down  their 
work  and  devote  all  their  time  and  thought  to 
it,  only  now  and  then  doing  something  for  the 
public,  they  soon  find  that  it  is  necessary  to 
give  up  one  or  the  other.  My  own  interest  in 
the  search  had  become  such  a  habit,  and  had  so 
much  pleasure  in  it,  that  when  my  experiments 
finally  came  to  an  end,  I  had  been  used  to 
the  hunt  for  so  many  years,  I  really  felt  as 
though  I  had  suffered  a  loss ! 

I  have  before  quoted  Vibert's  panacea  for 
avoiding  the  yellowing  blackness  in  the 
medium,  and  will  add  a  few  more  words  here 
as  to  why,  in  my  judgment,  the  "  petroleum 
and  normal  resin  "  or  varnish  is  not  logical, 
and  only  adds  that  which  it  is  intended  to 
prevent.  The  specific  gravity  of  resin  is  less 
than  that  of  oil ;  naturally,  the  resin  will  form 
at  the  top  in  any  atmosphere  warm  enough  to 
dry  it ;  the  resin  then  drying  first,  with  the  oil 
140 


THE  TRUE  MEDIUM  OE  VEHICLE 

underneath,  and  the  oil  only  partially  drying, 
the  painting  becomes  yellow,  brown  and  black- 
ens. Here  are  three  substances  with  uneven 
drying  powers  and  no  affinity.  It  follows  that 
there  is  no  normal  drying  of  the  painting.  It 
cannot  be  controverted  that  a  painting  made 
of  the  fewest  materials,  as  far  as  medium  or 
binder  is  concerned,  and  especially  if  made  of 
one  medium  alone,  is  the  surest  to  have  har- 
monious drying,  union,  transparency,  and 
durability. 

The  uncertainty  that  Reynolds  exhibits  in 
his  diaries  in  reference  to  a  transparent  and 
durable  medium  extended  throughout  his  life. 
Where  he  used  oil  in  the  dead  coloring,  or 
throughout  the  picture,  it  has  "  stood  well," 
as  in  his  early  work,  such  as  was  done  before 
1760 ;  but  this  does  not  mean  that  it  is  there- 
fore his  best  work.  It  undoubtedly  lacks  the 
transparency,  "  that  deep-toned  brightness  " 
as  he  called  it,  he  so  earnestly  sought  for. 
When  he  used  oil  in  the  ' '  dead  coloring, ' '  and 
in  his  subsequent  painting  a  minimum  of  good 
141 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

varnish  and  wax  (especially  the  latter)  with 
his  color  in  oil,  his  paintings  have  also  ' '  stood 
well  ";  while  when  the  varnish  and  wax  be- 
come a  factor  in  quantity  there  follows  deteri- 
oration. When  the  varnish  glaze  or  semiglaze 
was  covered,  even  in  part,  by  another  vehicle 
there  ensued  discoloration  unless  there  was 
perfect  and  fundamental  drying.  When  there 
was  a  simplicity  of  medium  throughout,  there 
was  more  durability  and  a  minimum  of  dis- 
coloration. 

For  very  nearly  fourteen  years  Reynolds 
used  Venice  turpentine  and  wax  more  or 
less,  and  the  more  Venice  turpentine  dries,  the 
more  it  loses  its  transparency,  unless  its  trans- 
parency is  renewed  artificially,  a  device  well 
known  to  some  restorers.  In  our  search  after  a 
transparent,  comfortable,  easily  handled,  and 
durable  medium  we  find  no  inspiration  here; 
we  must  seek  elsewhere.  In  studying  the  writ- 
ings of  others  on  this  subject,  I  find  the  search 
has  been  conducted  with  a  great  deal  of  energy 
and  patience,  and  a  vast  collection  of  formu- 
142 


THE  TRUE  MEDIUM   OE  VEHICLE 

las  for  mixtures,  vehicles,  oils,  and  varnishes 
made,  but  no  authoritative,  logical  selection 
and  classification.  The  works  on  these  sub- 
jects place  a  vast  number  of  ideas  and  sug- 
gestions, good,  bad,  and  indifferent  (with  the 
grain  of  good  hidden  and  disguised),  at  your 
disposal — and  there  you  are.  If  you  have  had 
experience  of  any  kind,  you  may  be  able  to 
get  some  assistance ;  otherwise,  you  will  surely 
get  into  bad  practice.  To  wade  through,  con- 
sider, and  test  the  best  and  most  likely  methods 
and  mediums  in  this  huge  mass  of  chaff  was  a 
tremendous  task,  and  was  a  very  perplexing, 
trying,  and  thankless  work;  but  it  had  an 
end,  fortunately,  or  this  little  book  would  not 
have  been  written.  The  labor  was  like  learn- 
ing languages — the  more  you  knew,  the  easier 
it  became  to  acquire  a  new  tongue.  From  the 
many  very  old,  rambling,  and  obscure  Italian 
writings  on  this  subject,  it  was  impossible  to 
glean  a  suggestion  or  an  authoritative  record 
that  made  any  sense  whatever  that  was  not 
already  in  a  way  suggested  or  contained  in 
143 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

that  very  complete  work  of  the  Frenchman 
J.  F.  L.  Merimee's  "  Art  of  Painting  in  Oil." 
The  same  ground  has  also  been  very  well  cov- 
ered by  Sir  Charles  L.  Eastlake's  "  Materials 
for  a  History  of  Oil  Painting."  And  many 
original  technical  art  finds  were  contained  in 
Mrs.  Merrifield  's  ' '  Original  Treatise  on  Paint- 
ing." 

These  compilations  and  many  others  were 
studied  to  find  the  Masters'  medium,  for  of  all 
the  important  things  about  a  painting,  the 
medium  or  vehicle  is  the  most  important.  It 
makes  it,  in  the  first  place,  easy  or  difficult  to 
paint,  and  so  helps  to  make  or  mar  the  ab- 
stract or  artistic  aspect.  It  is  the  transparent 
substance  through  which  the  color  particles  are 
visible  to  the  eye.  It  is  the  modest  invisible 
power  that  holds  the  particles  of  color  stead- 
ily in  place  in  dry  weather,  in  wet,  in  cold 
or  warm,  in  strong  light  or  in  darkness, 
while  resting  stationary  or  moved  about. 
It  is  the  substance  that  will  hold  the  color 
particles  in  place  under  favorable  conditions 
144 


THE   TRUE   MEDIUM  OR  VEHICLE 

for  a  thousand  years;  yes,  three  thousand 
years!  But  instead  of  new  light  and  pre- 
cise knowledge  from  these  compilations,  the 
subject  became  more  dark  and  befogged,  so 
there  was  nothing  to  do  but  test,  test  and  again 
test,  until  by  elimination  I  once  more  came 
to  the  starting  point  of  the  oil  as  the  medium. 
But  the  oil  in  a  more  or  less  pure  state  dark- 
ened and  discolored  the  painting !  In  all  the 
years  that  I  had  been  possessed  with  the  idea  of 
discovering  the  Old  Masters'  technic,  I  never 
once  thought  of  failure,  only  occasionally  feel- 
ing very  much  disturbed  and  depressed  be- 
cause no  better  progress  was  made,  and  at 
the  lapse  of  time ;  and  now,  when  I  was  once 
more  thrown  back  logically  on  the  use  of  the 
ill-famed  oil,  and  with  which  I  had  already 
made  almost  countless  experiments,  I  was  very 
much  disheartened,  and  failure  seemed  im- 
minent. 

Thus,   for  a  long  time  I  was  thoroughly 
"  stuck  "  and  at  a  standstill.    But  by  a  happy 
chance,  or  because   I  thought  so  constantly 
145 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

about  it  no  matter  with  what  I  was  occupied, 
it  suddenly  began  to  dawn  on  me  that  there 
must  be  some  after-process  that  took  from  the 
oil  its  power  to  injure  by  loss  of  transparency 
and  darkening  after  being  incorporated  into  a 
painting !  Heat  was  applied  with  no  very  sat- 
isfactory results,  as,  excepting  to  facilitate 
the  drying,  it  did  not  seem  to  have  any  appre- 
ciable value  in  preventing  the  after-discolora- 
tion. Then  I  tried  sunlight,  with  its  steady 
heat,  and  with  that  a  distinct  improvement 
set  in,  and  for  some  time  I  tested  the  effect 
of  direct  sunlight  in  many  ways  and  on  many 
substances.  I  soon  proved  to  my  own  satis- 
faction that  if  the  first  painting  or  dead  color 
was  thickly  used,  a  thorough  or  veritable  burn- 
ing out  was  absolutely  necessary ;  not  at  all  a 
drying  such  as  the  average  artist  considers 
sufficient,  but  one  such  as  would  effectually  re- 
duce the  quantity  of  oil.  I  might  call  it  a 
burning  out  and  a  bleaching  to  a  fixed  solid 
state.  As  long  as  there  is  any  soft  or  fluid 
oil  left  underneath  the  surface  it  is  liable  to 
146 


THE  TRUE  MEDIUM  OR  VEHICLE 

darken,  and  this  cumbersome  drudgery  is  nec- 
essary from  the  beginning  of  the  oil  ground 
throughout  the  various  stages  of  the  painting 
to  the  final  varnish.  Many  an  artist  has  been 
aware  of  the  necessity  of  the  drying  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  each  layer  of  paint,  but  they 
did  not  realize  the  very  great  importance  and 
necessity  of  bringing  about  the  fixed  bleached 
state,  i.  e.,  the  necessity  of  quickly  changing 
the  character  of  the  oil  under  the  outer  film. 
This  soft,  subfilm  oil  is  the  chief  factor  of  the 
discolor -at  ions.  The  film  itself  is  more  or  less 
porous,  and  when  the  oil  is  mixed  with  varnish 
the  minute  openings  are  in  a  measure  closed, 
hindering  the  evaporation  of  the  subsurface 
oil,  interfering  with  the  light  and  air  contact 
with  the  inner  surface,  and  preventing  that  so 
essential  circulation  of  the  heated  dry  air  in 
and  out  of  the  pores  of  the  oil.  The  purer  th'e 
oil,  the  finer  the  result. 

The  studio  is  no  place  to  perform  this  proc- 
ess of  burning  out,  because  it  has  no  sunlight. 
Even  during  the  very  hot  summer  months  the 
147 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

painting  could  not  burn  out  in  the  studio. 
Direct  strong  sunlight  is  absolutely  necessary. 
This  is  the  only  way  to  attain  the  transparency 
and  permanence  of  the  Masters.  High-keyed, 
transparent,  durable  color  is  not  otherwise  at- 
tainable, and  fraudulent  colors  are  quickly  ex- 
posed. The  sunlight  at  one  blow  destroys  the 
excess  of  oil  that  causes  the  yellowing,  brown- 
ing, and  blackening,  and  also  exposes  or  de- 
stroys the  dishonest,  the  unstable,  and  the 
weak  color.  Good  honest  colors  become  more 
brilliant  and  beautiful.  The  false  madder 
quickly  disappears,  the  poorly  made  vermilion 
blackens.  The  fierce  white  light  of  the  sun 
is  a  potent  influence  for  good,  and  a  destroyer 
of  the  bad  in  art  as  in  other  things.  Climate 
and  weather  will  have  an  influence  in  the  cre- 
ation of  good  paintings.  ' '  Sunny  Italy  ' '  has 
produced  many  beautiful  pictures,  but,  I  will 
hasten  to  add,  so  has  "  foggy  London."  Tho 
possibility  of  eliminating  the  oil  afterwards 
enables  an  artist  to  use  it  freely  in  the  colors 
and  on  the  palette,  no  other  technic  being  as 
148 


THE  TRUE  MEDIUM  OR  VEHICLE 

easy  as  the  pure-oil  technic.  In  one  experi- 
ment I  had  successively  eliminated  the  oil 
in  various  degrees  until  I  had  burned  it  all 
out  in  one  part  and  the  paint  had  again  be- 
come a  powder!  But  note  well,  that  is  not 
what  you  are  to  try  to  do  in  your  paintings. 
If  you  go  to  such  an  extreme  you  will  waste 
much  energy  and  patience,  for  it  takes  many 
days'  sunshine  in  spring  and  summer  months, 
from  early  morning  until  sundown,  and  pro- 
tection from  dust,  to  bring  about  this  result. 

Some  prominent  manufacturers  of  artists' 
colors  have  stated:  "  We  believe,  however,  it 
is  a  matter  of  opinion  whether  there  are  at 
present  any  investigations  before  the  public 
which,  with  regard  to  their  direct  bearing  on 
ordinary  painting,  and  exclusive  of  scientific 
value  in  the  abstract,  can  be  considered  satis- 
factory ' ' ;  and  that, ' '  no  person  who  values  a 
painting  ever  dreams  of  exposing  it  to  the  di- 
rect blaze  of  sunlight  ";  and  further  that, 
"  no  experimenter  should  therefore  carry  out 
his  investigations  under  conditions  other  than 
149 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

those  which  obtain  in  the  ordinary  life  history 
of  a  properly  kept  picture. ' '  While  I  believe 
that  the  manufacturers  in  question  are  honest 
in  their  opinions,  and  that  there  is  much  con- 
fusion and  doubt  in  the  whole  matter  where 
Royal  Academicians  take  opposing  sides  and 
hold  strong  convictions,  I  shall  be  able,  I  be- 
lieve, to  disprove  their  statement  beyond  a 
shadow  of  a  doubt,  and  on  absolutely  unim- 
peachable testimony  and  authority,  and  thus 
settle  this  matter  once  for  all.  Success  seemed 
to  attend  nearly  all  my  experiments,  and  I 
felt  sure  I  had  the  Masters'  medium,  but  I 
longed  for  an  authoritative  corroboration. 
But  how  to  get  it  was  the  question.  The  Mas- 
ters were  all  dead;  in  many  cases  even  their 
burial  places  were  forgotten.  Well,  then,  per- 
haps in  some  one  letter  of  all  these  men  there 
must  be  some  chance  mention  of  this,  even  if 
they  as  a  class  were  reticent  on  technical  mat- 
ters. 


150 


CHAPTER   XI 

THE   EVIDENCE 

So  I  again  set  sail  on  the  sea  of  discovery. 
It  had  long  before  taken  firm  hold  in  my  mind 
that  I  might  get  some  hint  or  fact  from  some 
autograph  letter  of  one  of  the  Masters.  This, 
if  found,  would  be  valuable  from  every  con- 
ceivable point  of  view.  It  would  be  authori- 
tative; and  with  the  Masters'  work  before  us, 
it  would  be  convincing.  With  this  thought, 
then,  constantly  in  mind  I  began  my  search  in 
this  new  channel.  Among  many  other  works 
and  short  notices  consulted  were  "  Carpen- 
ter's Pictorial  Notices,"  consisting  of  a 
memoir  of  Sir  A.  Van  Dyck.  The  largest  col- 
lection of  artists'  letters  I  could  discover, 
that  of  Dr.  Ernst  Guhl's  "  Kilnstler  Brief e  " 
("Artists'  Letters"),  edition  1880,  was  a 
11  151 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

veritable  storehouse  of  art  history  and  art 
research.  Dr.  Guhl  was  teacher  of  art  history 
at  the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  in  Berlin,  and 
died  in  the  year  1862.  There  have  been  since 
his  death  revisions  and  additions  to  his  work 
that  have  enlarged  it  greatly,  but  still  it  is 
not  now  up  to  date  in  all  the  latest  discov- 
eries of  artists'  letters,  and  particularly  of 
Rubens 's  letters  made  by  the  French  and 
others. 

It  is  a  pity  that  all  such  discoveries  should 
not  be  collected  in  one  complete  work.  The 
first  letter  we  have  of  importance  for  our  pur- 
pose was  written  by  Titian  when  he  was  ninety- 
one  years  of  age.  It  was  dated  Venice,  31st 
July,  1568,  and  was  addresed  to  the  Deputies 
of  Brescia.  The  paintings  in  question  were 
very  large,  with  life-size  figures,  and  intended 
for  the  town  hall  of  Brescia.  In  the  letter 
occurs  this  sentence:  "  But  the  paintings  are 
somewhat  troublesome  to  handle,  if  one  wishes 
to  apply  varnish  on  certain  places,  which, 
without  placing  it  in  the  sun  cannot  dry."  We 
152 


THE  EVIDENCE 

have  it  here  authoritatively  stated  by  the 
greatest  of  artists  that  it  does  a  picture  some 
service  to  place  it  in  the  sunlight ;  and  varnish, 
which  our  modern  artists  add  to  their  medium 
to  make  it  dry,  is  here  shown  to  be  itself  in 
need  of  being  placed  in  the  sun  to  dry.  A 
modern  artist  does  not  dream  of  the  need  of 
assisting  the  retouching  varnish,  or  any  other 
varnish,  to  dry  in  such  a  troublesome  man- 
ner ;  for  it  must  indeed  have  been  ' '  somewhat 
troublesome  ' '  to  take  such  large  paintings  out 
of  doors  into  the  sunlight  so  often.  Titian  re- 
ceived his  order  and  first  payment  in  August, 
1565,  and  the  delivery,  though  not  the  last 
payment,  took  place  in  October,  1568,  over 
three  years  later.  Did  Titian,  who  was  gen- 
erally so  secretive  in  technical  matters,  state 
the  facts  in  his  letter?  "Was  it  only  a  conven- 
tional excuse  to  appease  the  clamor  of  the 
Brescians  for  the  delivery  of  the  paintings 
which  he  was  taking  such  a  long  time  to  fin- 
ish? I  believe  he  did  state  the  facts.  He 
may  not  have  used  the  varnish  as  a  retouching 
153 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

varnish,  because  he  says  he  applied  it  in 
' '  places  ' ' ;  but  he  may  have  used  it  with  color 
added  as  a  thin  veil,  as  Reynolds  was  so  fond 
of  doing. 

Be  that  as  it  may,  he  clearly  says  it  was  a 
varnish,  and  without  the  sun  it  could  not  dry. 
So  much  is  certain!  Now,  if  a  man  of  his 
genius  decides  the  sun  is  necessary  for  varnish, 
how  much  more  necessary  must  it  be  for  the 
oil!  "We  know  that  Titian  was  in  Rome  in 
1545,  and  while  there  painted  Pope  Paul  the 
III  Farnese.  And  we  have  a  letter  of  a  con- 
temporary of  Titian's,  one  Giorgio  Vasari,  ad- 
dressed to  Benedetto  Varchi,  and  dated  Flor- 
ence, 12th  February,  1547,  in  which  occurs 
the  following  paragraph :  ' '  As  happened,  for 
instance,  with  the  portrait  of  Pope  Paul  III, 
which  was  placed  on  a  balcony  in  the  sun 
to  dry,  and  many  persons  in  passing,  who 
saw  it,  thought  it  was  the  Pope  himself,  and 
made  their  obeisance."  This,  added  to  Ti- 
tian's letter,  ought  to  convince  anyone  that 
he  was  particular  in  having  his  pictures  placed 
154 


THE  EVIDENCE 

in  sunlight  to  dry.  My  own  opinion  is  that  it 
was  more  on  account  of  the  oil  than  any  var- 
nish that  this  was  done.  When  we  consider 
that  only  one  painting  out  of  a  thousand  comes 
out  of  the  cold,  north-light  studios  to  get  even 
fairly  "  dried,"  and  those  only  by  chance  in 
summer,  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  their  sink- 
ing into  the  brown  and  black.  An  old  gentle- 
man who  knew  nothing  about  art  whatever, 
once  surprised  me  by  asking,  "  Why  are  old 
paintings  always  so  dark  1  ' '  The  truth  of  the 
statement  struck  me  so  forcibly  I  could  hardly 
formulate  a  reply. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  letters  I  have  just 
quoted  may  not  convince  the  artists  and  others 
that  my  theories  are  sufficiently  corroborated, 
for  few  if  any  modern  painters  paint  accord- 
ing to  such  principles.  They  naturally  would 
not  like  to  admit  that  they  have  been  laboring 
in  vain,  that  their  lasting  fame  is  as  though  it 
was  written  on  the  sands  of  the  seashore  at 
low  tide.  I  do  not  wish  by  this  little  book 
to  do  anything  but  assist  those  who  are  open 
155 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD   MASTERS 

to  reason  and  can  lay  aside  prejudice.  I  am 
not  giving  advice;  I  am  only  to  the  best  of 
my  knowledge  stating  valuable  facts,  that  I 
firmly  believe  will  have  a  far-reaching  influ- 
ence on  the  art  of  painting  in  the  future.  The 
writer  is  fully  aware  that  advice  is  very  dis- 
tasteful to  those  who  need  it  most.  In  art  we 
need  vanity,  and  it  hurts  our  vanity  to  admit 
we  are  wrong.  If  the  letters  I  have  quoted 
have  failed  to  convince  the  skeptics,  then  let 
them  note  the  following  letter  of  Rubens, 
addressed  to  Justus  Sustermans,  his  former 
countryman,  then  residing  in  Florence,  Italy, 
and  dated  Antwerp,  12th  March,  1638.  Ru- 
bens was  then  sixty-one  years  of  age,  just  two 
years  before  his  death.  I  will  here  quote  the 
whole  of  the  postscript :  "  N.  S.  I  am  afraid, 
that  if  that  newly  painted  picture  remains 
rolled  and  packed  up  such  a  long  time,  that 
the  colors  may  have  deteriorated  and  particu- 
larly the  carnations  and  the  white  lead  have 
darkened  a  little.  As  however  your  highness 
is  yourself  so  great  in  our  art,  you  will  easily 
156 


THE  EVIDENCE 

remedy  that  by  exposing  the  picture  to  the 
sun  in  certain  inclosed  places;  and  should  it 
be  necessary,  your  highness  could,  with  my 
consent,  lay  hand  thereon,  and  there,  where  ac- 
cident or  my  neglect  makes  it  necessary,  re- 
touch it.  "With  this  I  again, ' '  etc.  The  picture 
was  rolled  and  must  have  been  what  the  mod- 
ern artists  consider  dry,  and  therefore  to  be 
henceforth,  according  to  their  habits,  severely 
neglected.  But  friends,  this  placing  at  that 
time  in  the  sunlight  has  nothing  to  do  with  so- 
called  drying;  it  is  the  magic  chemical  action 
of  the  sunlight  that  the  Masters  made  use  of 
to  preserve  and  increase  their  color,  its  trans- 
parency, and,  what  hardly  needs  repeating 
here,  its  durability.  Note  the  admission  of  the 
fact  that  Rubens  had,  and  the  assumption  that 
Sustermans  had,  special  sun-exposed  but  in- 
closed spaces  for  this  very  purpose.  If  a 
modern  artist  were  shown  such  an  inclosed 
space  of  Rubens 's,  and  was  told  Rubens  placed 
his  pictures  therein  to  "  dry,"  he  would  have 
turned  away  and  given  the  matter  no  further 
157 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

thought ;  or  if  he  did  think,  he  perhaps  would 
have  said,  that  does  not  tell  me  how  and  with 
what  Rubens  painted.  Without  the  assistance 
of  the  direct  sunlight  there  is  no  other  way  or 
means  to  obtain  the  results  of  the  Masters. 
The  fierce  white  light  and  heat  of  the  sun 
is  the  magician.  I  have  experimented  with 
artificial  heat  alone  many  times,  because 
the  sun  does  not  always  shine  when  we  need 
it,  but  except  to  give  an  artist  the  oppor- 
tunity to  proceed  with  his  work  at  an 
appointed  time,  it  does  not  serve  the  purpose 
at  all. 

For  those  who  still  may  not  be  convinced, 
I  will  quote  a  part  of  another  letter  of  Rubens 
(the  italics  being  mine),  addressed  to  the 
French  savant  Nicolas  Claude  Fabri  de 
Pieresc,  and  dated  London,  9th  August,  1629, 
Rubens  being  then  in  his  fifty-second  year. 
The  extract  is :  "If  I  knew  that  my  portrait 
was  still  in  Antwerp,  I  would  have  it  detained 
there,  to  have  the  box  opened,  to  see  if  it  has 
not  been  injured,  or  become  darkened,  as  hap- 
158 


THE  EVIDENCE 

pens  often  to  fresh  colors,  if  they  are,  as  is  here 
the  case,  so  long  locked  in  a  box,  and  not  in 
contact  with  the  air.  It  may  be  then  that  my 
portrait  does  not  now  look  as  it  did  originally. 
Should  it  really  reach  you  in  such  a  bad  condi- 
tion, the  best  remedy  for  that  would  be  to  put 
it  often  in  the  sun;  by  this  means  the  excess  of 
oil,  which  causes  such  changes,  is  destroyed; 
and  if  from  time  to  time  it  should  again  get 
dark,  setting  it  in  the  sun's  rays  must  be  re- 
newed. This  is  the  only  remedy  against  this 
heart  disease." 

Are  there  any  skeptics  left  after  this? 
This  letter  teaches  us,  coming  from  Rubens,  of 
all  men  the  one  from  whom  we  would  have  it 
most,  that  he  used  oil ;  and,  judged  by  the  ex- 
treme solicitude  displayed  by  him  to  apply 
the  ' '  only  remedy  ' '  for  ' '  this  heart  disease, ' ' 
the  darkening,  he  must  have  used  oil  freely. 
The  easy  flow  and  freedom  of  the  brush  shows 
that  he  must  have  used  plenty  of  it  (but  never 
too  much),  and  that  the  surface  over  which 
the  brush  moved  was  perfectly  dry  and  hard. 
159 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

His  paintings  have  the  appearance  of  having 
been  done  at  one  coup ;  at  one  cast,  like  bronze. 
There  is  a  unity  throughout,  a  lightness,  a 
beauty,  as  Reynolds  said,  "  like  a  bunch  of 
flowers,"  that  was  only  brought  about  by  the 
great  magician  the  sun.  We  know  from  the 
writings  of  Rubens  that  he  was  very  particu- 
lar to  keep  dust  from  his  unfinished  paintings, 
and  that  on  this  account  he  did  not  like  windy 
days.  Like  Titian  he  often  delayed  sending 
away  paintings  in  order  to  sun  them.  The 
writer  cannot  resist  the  temptation  to  quote 
two  more  little  extracts  from  two  Rubens  let- 
ters written  on  the  same  day,  dated  Ant- 
werp, 26th  May,  1618,  and  addressed  to  Sir 
Dudley  Carleton.  The  first  is  as  follows: 
"  We  have  had  to-day  so  fine  a  sun  that  (a 
few  excepted)  the  whole  of  your  pictures  are 
so  dry  that  they  could  be  packed  to-morrow. 
The  same  may  be  hoped  of  the  others  in  the 
course  of  three  days,  according  to  the  appear- 
ance of  the  good  season."  The  second  letter 
contained  this  interesting  paragraph:  "  Still 
160 


THE  EVIDENCE 

with  the  aid  of  the  sun,  if  it  shines  serene  and 
without  wind  (which,  stirring  up  the  dust, 
is  injurious  to  newly  painted  pictures)  will  be 
in  a  fit  state  to  be  rolled  up  in  five  or  six  days 
of  fine  weather." 


161 


CHAPTER   XII 

SUMMARY 

IT  seems  hardly  necessary  for  me  to  produce 
any  further  evidence  in  support  of  my  con- 
tention in  regard  to  the  medium  and  methods 
of  the  Masters.  We  have  our  evidence  fortu- 
nately from  the  two  greatest  technical  giants, 
Titian  and  Rubens.  At  last  we  have  light 
upon  a  "  mystery  "  that  has  long  troubled 
generations  of  artists.  Many  an  otherwise 
brilliant  genius  has  struck  this  hidden  reef  and 
gone  down.  The  secret  of  the  medium  lay  hid- 
den behind  that  innocent  act  the  "  drying," 
and  in  an  ordinary  sense  that  has  hardly  any 
significance,  for  even  the  dullest  painter  may 
want  to  dry  a  picture ;  but  by  making  diligent 
and  thorough  use  of  the  strongest  sunlight 
during  the  progress  of  the  work,  and  partieu- 
162 


SUMMARY 

larly  immediately  afterwards,  a  painting  be- 
gins to  attain  that  fine,  enamel-like  surface 
of  the  Masters,  that  "  life-like  "  appearance, 
so  unlike  an  ordinary  oil  painting ;  that  won- 
derful appearance,  that  has  deceived  and  baf- 
fled generations  of  capable  painters;  that  ap- 
pearance of  transparency  and  lightness,  yet 
with  its  depth  of  color  and  solidity  of  body — 
in  short,  that  appearance  that  has  made  men 
like  Reynolds  hold  for  a  lifetime  to  the  false 
theory  that  it  could  only  be  accomplished  by 
means  of  a  varnish  medium.  How  many 
artists  there  are  who  solemnly  extract  every 
drop  of  oil  possible  from  the  tube  colors,  and 
substitute  some  rubbish  of  their  own  or  some- 
body else's  invention.  Some  of  the  greatest 
names  in  modern  art  will  come  under  this 
head. 

The  various  theories  and  inventions  in- 
tended to  accomplish  the  Masters'  technical 
results  would  by  themselves  fill  volumes.  And 
yet  there  are  some  isolated  cases  of  artists  in 
various  countries  who  have  solved  this  problem 
163 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

in  whole  or  in  part,  and  who  in  consequence 
have  generally  attained  the  reputation  of  col- 
orists !  It  is  quite  certain  that  those  who  have 
not  studied,  worked,  and  solved  the  problems 
as  the  Masters  did,  have  not  retained  any  repu- 
tation as  colorists.  I  might  cite  the  meth- 
ods, vehicle  and  palette,  employed  by  many 
painters  in  the  last  one  hundred  years,  and 
who  at  one  time  had  reputations  as  colorists, 
yet  whose  work  to-day  has  an  uninteresting, 
dark,  yellowish-brown  appearance.  As  I  have 
said  elsewhere,  no  two  have  worked  alike,  yet 
the  results  are  alike  in  brown,  dark  pictures. 
Now  the  Masters  in  the  principle  of  their  work, 
and  almost  in  the  palette,  were  alike,  yet  the 
beautiful  results  varied  greatly.  Each  man's 
individual  taste  for  color  was  stamped  on  his 
work  ineffaceably.  "  Sunny  Italy  "  seems  by 
nature  to  have  been  the  birthplace  of  what 
Reynolds  called  the  "  grand  style  "  of  paint- 
ing ;  but  if  climate  and  environment  had  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  production  of  fine  paint- 
ings, why  did  it  appear  to  cease  soon  after  the 
164 


SUMMARY 

deaths  of  Paul  Veronese  and  Tintoretto  ?  The 
decline  of  the  art  of  painting  is  so  pronounced, 
that  were  it  not  for  a  few  Frenchmen,  and  the 
great  Flemish  and  Dutch  painters,  there  would 
be  a  complete  dark  break  between  the  Great 
Masters  and  the  present  times.  Almost  in  the 
same  year  of  Titian's  death,  1576,  Rubens  was 
born,  1577.  He  and  Van  Dyck  carried  the 
great  work  onward  far  north  of  "  sunny 
Italy,"  in  Antwerp  and  foggy  London.  Thus 
we  see  that  the  controlling  factor  in  the  pro- 
duction of  masterpieces  is  not  climate,  or 
indeed  any  other  feature  of  natural  environ- 
ment, but  that  fortuitous  and  most  truly  glo- 
rious incarnation  in  one  man  of  the  magic 
trinity  —  Knowledge,  Ability,  and  Vitality. 
The  Master,  all  hail  to  him ! 

Before  closing  this  story  of  a  search  for 
the  secrets  of  the  Masters,  it  will  be  proper 
to  take  up  the  subject  of  colors.    Speak- 
ing generally,  I  found  both  the  colors 
and  the  dealers  much  maligned,  for  the  treat- 
ment of  the  colors  is  not  quite  understood.    I 
165 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

have  found  the  tube  colors  sold  by  the  repu- 
table and  old-established  houses  to  have  a  high 
average  of  quality,  although  I  have  frequently 
had  to  reject  a  tube  as  being  much  too  old,  and 
occasionally  a  color  that  was  not  the  shade  de- 
sired, or  appeared  soiled  by  foreign  matters, 
especially  the  blacks  and  the  darker  colors, 
such  as  bone  brown,  the  madders,  and  raw 
sienna.  The  whites  and  ochres  were  apt  to  be 
discolored.  With  the  light  colors,  the  soiled 
state  was  plainly  apparent  on  inspection  be- 
fore use.  The  dirt  and  dust  particles,  espe- 
cially lint,  in  the  dark  colors,  become  only  vis- 
ible in  the  process  of  handling  and  ' '  drying. ' ' 
The  manner  of  drying  also  indicates 
whether  any  other  substance  besides  oil  was 
mixed  with  the  color.  Then  again  the  fact 
that  very  few  tube  colors  have  Unseed  oil  only 
as  the  oily  constituent  must  be  considered, 
some  having  poppy  oil,  and  most  having  prob- 
ably nut  oil.  Now  this  is  one  serious  disadvan- 
tage of  the  tube  colors,  without  considering 
that  there  may  be  wax  or  some  other  substance 
166 


SUMMARY 

added.  The  oil  in  some  of  the  tubes  may  be 
rancid  and  stale,  in  others  fresh,  and  with 
probably  three  kinds  of  oil  the  results  cannot 
be  as  good  as  the  Masters'  colors  and  fresh  lin- 
seed oil  would  give.  Nevertheless,  in  very 
skillful  hands  I  have  seen  results  closely  ap- 
proximating those  of  the  Masters.  In  a  great 
many  cases,  on  the  other  hand,  I  have  seen 
very  poor  work  done  by  skillful  men,  where  I 
had  good  reason  to  think  the  results  were  due 
to  the  inferior  material.  This  is  the  dark  side 
of  the  otherwise  convenient  modern  system  of 
having  large  manufacturers  prepare  colors  for 
the  many  artists,  as  against  the  old  system  of 
having  each  artist  prepare  his  own.  In  the 
latter  case,  if  he  had  no  helper  at  hand,  he 
would  find  it  a  very  great  addition  to  his  hard 
work.  But  then  he  could  mix  his  colors  to  a 
consistency  to  suit  his  habit  of  working,  make 
sure  his  color  is  pure,  his  oil  pure  and  fresh, 
and  last  and  most  important,  that  no  foreign 
substance  is  present  to  retard  its  natural 
drying. 

12  167 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

From  the  present  conditions  it  hardly  looks 
as  though  the  apprentice  system  of  the  Old 
Masters  or  the  artists  preparing  their  colors 
in  their  own  studios  will  ever  be  restored,  so 
it  behooves  us  to  try  to  improve  the  system  we 
have.  The  only  essentials  are  purity  and  gen- 
uineness of  color  and  purity  and  freshness  of 
the  oil.  It  seems  to  me  that  possibly  it  would 
in  the  end  pay  the  manufacturers  to  have 
strict  labels  as  to  kind  of  color,  oil,  and  date 
of  placing  on  the  market;  above  all  whether 
the  color  is  light  proof;  then  charge  a  little 
more  for  the  extra  trouble  and  expense  for 
withdrawal  of  old  colors  from  the  market. 
What  I  shall  say  here  about  colors  is  only  as 
as  artist  is  concerned  with  them.  Every  artist 
who  buys  a  color  in  the  market  must  make  a 
test  of  every  tube  or  take  the  maker's  word 
as  to  its  genuineness.  Of  course  this  does  not 
refer  to  the  ochres,  for  they  are  so  cheap  and 
plentiful  there  is  no  motive  for  fraud ;  but  in 
regard  to  nearly  all  others,  and  particularly 
the  expensive  colors,  the  artist  must  do  one  or 
168 


SUMMARY 

the  other.  And  here  I  wish  most  emphatically 
to  caution  the  artist  to  use  madders  or  other 
strong  reds  only  when  they  are  absolutely 
light  proof.  I  had  occasion  to  paint  with 
white,  black,  and  madder  without  any  other 
color,  and  in  a  year  the  madder  had  vanished 
— it  had  been  bought  of  one  of  the  best  houses ; 
and  this  reminds  me  of  some  portraits  by 
Gainsborough,  the  colors  of  which,  particu- 
larly the  red,  had  faded.  At  about  the  same 
time  they  were  painted,  Reynolds  also  painted 
some  portraits  that  subsequently  faded,  and 
when  complaint  of  this  was  made  to  him,  he 
made  his  famous  little  joke  of  "  coming  off 
with  flying  colors. ' '  Very  likely  they  bought 
their  colors  of  the  same  colorman. 

Many  strange  causes  are  given  for  changes 
in  colors  on  paintings,  and  often  when  the 
wiseacres  do  not  know  the  cause,  they  make 
one  up.  Among  those  doing  double  duty  are 
gases;  somewhat  like  the  cause  of  fire  when 
the  cause  is  unknown,  it  can  always  be  as- 
signed to  spontaneous  combustion.  It  seems 
169 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

very  strange,  too,  that  the  ' '  gases  ' '  affect  cer- 
tain men's  work,  and  others  not  at  all.  I  be- 
lieve the  ochres  are  the  only  ones  of  all  the 
colors  that  have  maintained  a  good  reputation 
with  us  all.  Is  it  because  they  are  not  as  hand- 
some as  their  sisters  ?  In  my  talks  with  artist 
painters  I  have  heard  nearly  every  color,  ex- 
cepting a  few  ochres,  in  turn  condemned,  be- 
ginning with  white,  all  down  the  list.  In  my 
experience  and  tests  I  have  found  most  colors 
commonly  used,  and  having  a  bad  reputation, 
to  be  satisfactory  if  used  alone  or  properly 
treated.  This  of  course  does  not  refer  to  ani- 
line colors.  It  would  be  impossible  for  me  to 
take  an  ordinary  color  list  of  the  dealers,  and 
go  through  all,  and  give  an  opinion  on  their 
lasting  quality.  Each  artist,  as  his  taste  and 
judgment  dictates  the  use  of  certain  colors, 
should  learn  to  get  in  the  habit  of  testing  them. 
It  is  easily  done,  as  I  will  show  later  on,  and 
requires  only  the  will  and  some  attention. 

Beginning  with  white  lead,  be  it  Cremnitz 
white,  silver  white,  flake  white,  or  other  good 
170 


white  lead,  it  has  been  asserted  that  some 
colors,  as  for  instance  vermilion,  suffered 
when  brought  in  contact  with  white  lead,  or 
rather,  that  the  lead  darkened  when  brought  in 
contact  with  vermilion.  Pure  vermilion  is  oc- 
casionally characterized  by  fluctuation,  that 
is,  under  certain  conditions  of  light  and  tem- 
perature ;  it  gets  darker  in  a  strong  light,  and 
in  a  weaker  light  returns  to  its  former  state. 
I  have  made  tests  that  extended  over  a  period 
of  twenty  years,  and  have  found  that  if  the 
colors  are  used  in  the  manner  of  the  Masters, 
the  vermilion  does  not  mar  or  injure  the  white 
lead,  nor  the  white  lead  the  vermilion.  Of 
this  I  am  firmly  convinced,  even  though  such 
an  eminent  painter  as  Vibert  says  that  it  is 
necessary  to  use  zinc  white  with  vermilion  in- 
stead of  white  lead.  In  his  book  he  declares : 
"  Sont  bonnes  aussi;  Le  Cinabre,  Vermilion 
frangais,  Vermilion  de  Chine,  en  ayant  soin 
de  ne  jamais  les  melanger  au  blanc  de  plomb 
ou  d 'argent,  mais  au  blanc  de  zinc  settlement." 
To  drop  white  lead  and  use  that  sickly  zinc 
171 


THE  SECEET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

white,  instead,  in  painting  the  flesh,  for  in- 
stance, is  a  serious  nuisance,  though  in  paint- 
ing red  drapery  it  is  not  so  troublesome.  Take 
vermilion  from  Rubens 's  paintings,  and  you 
take  the  heart  out.  It  seems  to  me  inconceiv- 
able that  he  could  have  bothered  with  zinc 
white.  I  shall  conclusively  prove  that  he  used 
white  lead  and  not  zinc  white.  The  whole  mat- 
ter in  reference  to  white  lead  and  vermilion 
always  rests  on  the  sterling  purity  of  the  white 
lead,  oil,  and  vermilion,  and  the  proper  treat- 
ment, as  indicated  in  the  preceding  chapter. 
I  am  aware  that  it  is  a  tradition  that  for- 
bids the  mixture  of  white  lead  and  vermilion, 
and  substitutes  zinc  white  in  place  of  the  white 
lead.  To  an  artist  of  an  inquiring  mind,  ver- 
milion and  white  are  very  obvious  in  Rubens 's 
paintings ;  but  if  proof  were  wanted  as  to  the 
character  of  the  white  he  employed,  we  have 
the  very  best,  over  his  own  signature,  in  a  let- 
ter quoted  in  the  preceding  chapter  to  his  fel- 
low artist  and  one-time  countryman,  Justus 
Sustermans,  dated  Antwerp,  March  12th,  1638. 
172 


SUMMARY 

I  will  give  only  a  part  of  the  postscript.  He 
writes:  "I  am  afraid  that  if  that  newly 
painted  picture  remains  packed  up  such  a  long 
time,  that  the  colors  may  have  deteriorated — 
and  particularly  that  the  carnations  and  the 
white  lead  have  darkened  a  little."  Fortu- 
nately Rubens  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Old  Masters,  and  the  question  of  white  lead 
and  vermilion  versus  zinc  white  and  vermilion 
is  in  my  judgment  settled,  once  for  all. 

Since  flesh  is  conceded  to  be  one  of  the  most 
difficult  things  to  paint,  I  have  given  my  atten- 
tion to  such  colors  as  I  thought  might  enter 
into  it  and  the  immediate  environment  usually 
portrayed.  The  Old  Masters,  as  I  said  else- 
where, had  one  ochre,  of  a  deep  red  quality, 
that  probably  is  unknown  to-day.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  we  have  many  good  substitutes 
and  more  and  better  colors,  excepting  only 
genuine  ultramarine,  which  on  account  of  its 
expense  is  practically  prohibited.  It  was  ex- 
pensive and  scarce  in  the  Old  Masters'  time,  as 
some  of  their  contracts  for  paintings  show.  I 
173 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

think  we  have  so  many  good  colors  that  it  is 
really  an  embarrassment  of  riches.  I  am  sure 
that  many  artists  are  often  puzzled  to  decide 
which  colors  to  leave  off  the  palette.  The  ab- 
solute certainty  that  the  Old  Masters  had 
fewer  colors  should  guide  us  in  our  use  of 
them.  They  knew  how  to  employ  the  simplest 
colors  with  the  greatest  effect.  The  nudes  in 
most  cases  were  painted  with  a  striking  ab- 
sence of  strong  reds  and  yellows.  One  day  in 
looking  for  two  colors  to  make  a  rich,  warm 
veil  or  "  glaze  "  with  varnish,  I  was  very 
much  surprised  to  note  the  almost  exact  re- 
semblance a  thin  mixture  of  varnish  and  light 
red  was  to  a  mixture  of  madder  and  a  power- 
ful yellow.  Except  toward  the  finishing,  the 
Masters'  principle  of  flesh-color  effects  was  to 
avoid  the  mixing  of  red  and  yellow  as  much  as 
possible.  Their  habit  was,  for  the  flesh  to  use 
only  three  colors  at  a  time — a  white,  a  black, 
and  some  other  color,  the  latter  being  con- 
stantly changed  according  to  the  progress  of 
the  flesh  painting.  One  day  it  would  be  a 
174 


SUMMARY 

strong  red,  and  when  that  was  dry  enough 
to  proceed,  a  warmer  red  was  then  laid  over, 
and  finally  the  much  warmer  yellow.  This 
procedure  insures  simplicity  of  color  and  dura- 
bility. 

The  more  modern  practice  of  mixing  a  red 
and  yellow,  adding,  for  the  colder  tints,  black 
and  white,  or  blue  and  white,  then  probably 
breaking  this  mixture  with  still  other  colors, 
is  more  complex  on  its  face,  more  likely  to 
make  a  bad  chemical  compound,  takes  more 
time,  and  one  color  kills  the  purity  of  the 
other.  "What  are  the  probabilities,  under  such 
conditions,  of  color  durability?  Then,  too,  a 
brilliant  yellow  or  red  may  have  been  strength- 
ened with  a  color  lacking  permanence.  The 
artist  is  too  ready  to  take  the  color  that  is  most 
brilliant  and  reject  the  sturdy,  honest,  though 
less  pretty  color.  Take,  for  instance,  yelloAv 
ochre.  I  have  known  a  manufacturer,  in  try- 
ing to  displace  a  rival,  to  place  on  sale  a  color 
much  richer  and  stronger  than  ordinary  yel- 
low ochre.  The  injury  to  permanence  would 
175 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

come  from  the  presumably  bad  character  of 
the  adulterant.  To  return  to  white  lead,  there 
is  one  idea  entirely  personal  with  me,  and  it 
may  have  occurred  to  others,  that  is,  that  I 
find  the  white  lead  often  ground  too  fine. 
There  ought  to  be  two  kinds,  each  equally 
white,  clean,  and  pure,  but  differing  in  the 
degree  of  the  grinding.  One  should  be  consid- 
erably coarser,  not  in  the  other  extreme,  but 
so  it  will  lose  the  pasty,  close  consistency,  and 
move  better  with  the  brush  for  heavy  body 
tones.  I  have  found  when  large  tubes  of  so- 
called  decorative  white  lead  were  put  out  for 
sale,  it  was  not  as  clean,  pure,  and  white  as 
it  should  be. 


176 


CHAPTER   XIII 

DURABLE    COLORS 

THE  reader  is  probably  well  acquainted  with 
the  principal  safe  colors,  yet  for  the  benefit 
of  those  who  may  not  know,  I  will  mention  a 
few  which  when  made  correctly  may  be  relied 
on,  and  which  have  an  extreme  range. 

"White  lead,  blue  black,  ivory  black,  bone 
brown,  cobalt,  ultramarine,  light  red,  Indian 
red,  vermilion,  the  lovely  madders  (rose  to 
deeper  shades),  cobalt  violet,  yellow  ochre, 
raw  sienna,  burnt  sienna,  burnt  terre  verte, 
raw  umber,  burnt  umber,  cadmium  (in  two  or 
more  shades  as  required),  terre  verte,  verte 
de  cobalt,  the  oxide  of  chromiums,  and  quite  a 
number  of  others.  But  this  is  already  a  large 
array  to  have  handy  for  any  possible  subject, 
and  not  at  all  likely  to  be  used  for  any  one 
177 


THE  SECRET  OF   THE   OLD   MASTERS 

painting.  The  smaller  the  number  of  colors 
used,  the  better.  I  did  not  mention  the  chrome 
yellows  and  other  colors  constantly  used,  espe- 
cially those  our  friends  the  landscape  painters 
are  in  the  habit  of  using — the  strong  greens, 
and  blues  and  yellows  to  make  greens.  I  will 
describe  later  how  each  artist  can  test  easily 
and  surely  each  color  he  is  in  the  habit  of 
using;  this  will  protect  him  and  his  work,  and 
if  generally  adopted  will  put  dishonest  or  in- 
competent manufacturers  out  of  business.  The 
tube  colors  spoken  of  as  safe  are  those  only 
of  the  old  reputable  manufacturers. 

It  might  be  well  to  say  a  word  more  in 
regard  to  cobalt.  Years  ago,  in  Munich, 
an  instructor  of  mine  condemned  it.  He  de- 
clared it  turned  green,  and  that  it  was  adul- 
terated with  powdered  glass ;  but  I  have  since 
tested  it,  and  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
oil  in  the  color  may  have  deceived  him,  and 
when  it  turned  darker  yellow  the  blue  natu- 
rally took  on  a  green  tint.  The  tests  have 
proved  it  reliable,  and  I  have  regretted  not 
178 


DURABLE  COLORS 

having  had  as  much  use  of  it  as  I  otherwise 
should.  The  beauty  of  a  blue,  violet,  purple, 
or  a  pearl-gray  tone  is  very  quickly  destroyed 
by  a  yellowing  medium.  Ultramarine,  both 
alone  and  in  combination  with  other  colors, 
I  have  found  excellent,  except  that  when  com- 
bined with  cadmium  or  chrome  yellow  there 
seemed  to  be  a  doubt,  the  blue  apparently  over- 
powering the  yellow — but  that  comes  under 
the  head  of  green.  If  its  color  is  satisfactory, 
a  reliable  yellow  to  mix  with  the  blue  to  make 
a  green  is  said  to  be  citron  yellow  (chromate 
of  zinc).  Light  red  is  one  of  our  finest  and 
most  permanent  colors,  and  should  be  used 
where  possible,  in  place  of  combining  two 
stronger  colors  that  just  turn  out  a  tone  the 
exact  equivalent  of  light  red  and  likely  to  be 
less  permanent.  Indian  red,  when  mixed  with 
white,  is  a  fine  tone,  but  care  should  be  taken 
in  its  use,  as  its  strength  seems  to  increase 
with  time.  All  madder  colors,  when  well  made 
of  the  genuine  madder  and  clear  pure  oil 
alone,  are  reliable  and  permanent.  Cobalt 
179 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

violet  seems  thus  far  to  be  durable.  It  is  the 
only  color  with  a  tendency  to  violet  I  know  to 
be  stable.  The  madders  of  very  purple  shade 
do  not  seem  to  be  either  genuine  or  permanent. 
If  the  artist's  need  for  reds  extends  beyond 
Indian  red,  light  red,  vermilion,  madders,  and 
cobalt  violet,  it  will  be  necessary  for  him  to 
make  tests,  since  there  is  no  doubt  about  these, 
and  there  is  about  some  or  nearly  all  others, 
and  these  cover  a  wide  range.  Yellow  ochre 
is  a  true,  permanent  color,  and  should  always 
be  ground  very  fine ;  indeed,  the  finer  the  bet- 
ter; the  same  also  applying  emphatically  to 
light  red.  These  two  colors  if  ground  coarsely 
lose  their  true  beauty  of  tone.  Raw  sienna 
and  burnt  sienna  are  good,  permanent  colors 
and  should  be  very  useful  occasionally.  Burnt 
sienna  is  very  similar  to  light  red,  in  that  they 
are  both  close  to  the  dividing  line  between 
red  and  yellow.  The  light  red  seems  nearer 
to  the  neutral  line  than  the  burnt  sienna,  the 
latter  having  more  yellow,  and  in  consequence, 
for  painting  the  carnations,  not  to  be  com- 
180 


DURABLE  COLORS 

pared  to  light  red.  Artists  who  have  painted 
with  a  restricted  palette  will  understand  my 
meaning.  "With  a  restricted  palette  one  at 
least  learns  the  true  power  of  each  color. 
Burnt  terre  verte  when  it  has  its  true  shade 
and  not  burnt  too  much,  so  it  resembles  burnt 
sienna,  is  a  beautiful  tone,  and  very  useful  in 
breaking  either  a  red  or  yellow.  When  used 
in  combination  with  black  and  white  it  gives 
beautiful,  high-keyed  notes  that  occur  in  the 
nude,  are  quickly  mixed  and  permanent.  The 
cadmiums,  and  even  the  chromes,  I  have  found 
good  if  properly  treated.  I  feel,  however,  that 
they  do  not  stand  mixture  with  blue  very  well. 
I  know  the  chromes  have  a  very  bad  reputa- 
tion, but  I  have  tested  good  cadmium  with 
good  white  lead,  and  good  chrome  with  good 
white  lead,  and  they  have  behaved  very  well. 
The  one  annoying  manifestation  of  these  colors 
occurred  when  mixed  with  a  blue,  especially 
with  the  Prussian  and  Antwerp  blues,  and 
even  when  united  with  our  good  friend  ultra- 
marine they  have  shown  a  marked  tendency 
181 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

to  become  overpowered  by  the  blues.  The 
Prussian  and  Antwerp  blues  have  a  well- 
earned  reputation  for  getting  black.  Did  the 
Masters  use  asphaltum?  I  believe  they  did, 
but  not  in  the  modern  manner.  I  believe  they 
never  mixed  asphaltum  with  oil.  It  is  itself 
a  deep  rich  brown,  turpentine  varnish.  If 
the  asphaltum  is  mixed  with  oil  and  used 
freely  as  an  artist's  color,  the  turpentine  in 
the  asphaltum  evaporates,  the  asphaltum  films 
over,  and  as  in  other  mixtures  of  oil  and  var- 
nish the  oil  remains  undried  underneath.  The 
first  good  rise  of  temperature  in  the  summer 
causes  the  oil  to  expand,  and  gravitation  starts 
a  movement  downward.  Used  with  oil,  as- 
phaltum absolutely  produces  blackening  and 
deterioration.  The  unfortunate  use  of  asphal- 
tum may  be  noted  in  two  pictures  of  Mun- 
kacsy's,  "  The  Pawnbroker  "  and  the  "  Last 
Hours  of  Mozart,"  now  in  the  New  York  Met- 
ropolitan Museum. 

A  word  about  color  tests.    The  only  logical 
color  test  for  artists  is  the  prolonged  contact 
182 


DURABLE  COLORS 

of  the  color  with  air  and  sunlight.    When  a 
color  is  to  be  tested  it  is  necessary  to  have  a 

canvas  grounded  absolutely  white,  which 
Coiorsg          k  itself  above  suspicion  of  any  possible 

change,  to  receive  it.  Therefore,  to  test 
color  we  must  first  make  and  test  a  canvas.  A 
good  linen  should  be  chosen,  and  the  ground,  be 
it  a  glue,  an  oil,  or  a  varnish  ground,  thorough- 
ly exposed  in  the  sun.  An  oil  ground  is  the  best 
for  this  purpose,  and  an  absorbent  ground 
should  not  be  used  unless  it  is  first  covered 
with  a  sufficient  layer  of  finest  copal,  and  of 
course  dried  thoroughly  in  the  sun.  "When 
your  test  canvas  appears  to  be  perfectly 
white,  place  a  very  large  thumb  tack  near 
the  edge  of  the  stretcher  and  through  the 
front  of  the  canvas;  press  it  close  to  the 
canvas  to  prevent  the  sunlight  from  reach- 
ing that  part  of  the  ground  under  it,  then 
expose  canvas  again  to  the  sunlight.  After 
about  ten  days  of  sunlight  exposure  remove 
the  thumb  tack,  and  generally  there  will  be 
found  a  circle  of  faint  yellow  where  the 
13  183 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE   OLD   MASTERS 

light  could  not  penetrate.  If  no  yellowness 
is  shown,  then  the  canvas  is  a  safe  white;  if 
there  is  any  yellowness,  then  the  thumb  tack 
must  be  put  in  a  new  position  and  the  proc- 
ess renewed  until  there  is  hardly  any  differ- 
ence in  the  color  or  tone  of  the  white  ground 
and  the  part  that  was  under  the  thumb 
tack. 

Having  your  canvas,  you  divide  it  with 
very  faint  lines  in  even  square  or  oblong 
spaces  of  about  two  and  a  half  by  three  and  a 
half  inches,  and  these  spaces  are  to  be  sep- 
arated by  at  least  one-half  inch  all  around.  In 
other  words,  the  square  or  oblong  spaces  are 
to  receive  the  color  to  be  tested,  and  no  two  col- 
ors should  come  in  contact.  It  is  best  to  have  a 
chart  or  test  canvas  for  each  group,  one  for 
reds,  one  for  blues,  one  for  yellows,  etc.  It  is 
not  well  to  try  to  test  a  strong  green  in  imme- 
diate proximity  to  a  strong  red — say,  a  ver- 
milion— for  the  eye  is  strangely  influenced  by 
these  two  colors,  as  the  following  story  shows : 
A  friend  was  painting  a  man's  portrait,  and 
184 


DURABLE  COLORS 

during  the  progress  of  the  work  decided  to 
change  the  background  into  a  rather  strong 
green.  He  had  some  fine  Gobelin  tapestry, 
representing  a  landscape,  for  the  actual  back- 
ground. Then  he  decided  that  the  black 
clothes  needed  repainting,  and  when  I  saw  the 
picture  again,  he  asked  my  opinion.  I  asked  in 
turn,  "  Do  you  see  such  a  strong  red  cast  (ob- 
viously madder)  in  the  black  of  the  clothes  as 
you  have  painted  them?  "  He  said,  "  Yes." 
I  who  had  come  to  the  painting  with  a  fresh 
eye,  uninfluenced  by  the  green,  did  not  see 
the  red  cast  in  the  black,  as  I  told  him. 

I  could  cite  many  instances  of  the  peculiar 
influence  of  the  conjunction  of  red  and  green, 
some  of  which  were  comical.  I  have  no  doubt 
much  will  be  written  on  this  subject  in  the 
future,  and  especially  in  connection  with 
"  color  blindness  "  and  railroad  signals.  I 
have  seen  this  effect  of  green  on  the  eye  em- 
bodied in  a  landscape  painting  many  times: 
where  the  sunlit  green  predominates  in  land- 
scapes, artists  have  painted  red  or  violet  shad- 
185 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD   MASTERS 

ows  that  were  really  gray,  bluish,  or  even 
greenish,  and  the  effect  was  false  and  inhar- 
monious; though  the  artist  paints  what  he 
really  sees,  as  a  true  color  value,  he  does  not 
realize  that  it  is  not  a  normal  seeing,  and  at 
any  rate  is  an  untrue  exaggeration.  The  pub- 
lic instantly  know  the  contrast  is  false,  for 
they  are  not  under  the  influence  of  the  green 
any  length  of  time.  Their  eyes  are  not 
strained  or  perhaps  tired,  nor  need  they 
look  at  the  green  as  intently  as  the  artist 
had  to. 

When  the  chart  or  charts  are  ready  (it  is 
best  to  make  a  number  at  once,  to  have  them 
handy)  the  color  to  be  tested  should  be  care- 
fully and  quickly  applied  with  a  perfectly 
clean  brush  to  its  square  as  evenly  as  possible. 
Then  at  once,  underneath  each  color  for  which 
a  clear  space  of  white  was  left  as  indicated 
above,  a  memorandum  must  be  made  as  small 
and  legible  as  possible  of  the  date,  name  of 
color,  manufacturer,  and  whether  with  any 
extra  oil  or  other  ingredient,  such  as  varnish, 
186 


megilp,  etc.  If  two  colors  are  mixed,  as  cad- 
mium and  white,  for  instance,  the  memoran- 
dum must  be  made  at  once ;  no  matter  how 
sure  one  may  be  of  knowing  and  remembering, 
this  memorandum  must  not  be  neglected.  I 
had  many  days  of  ' '  brain  cudgeling  ' '  on  one 
occasion  because  I  failed  to  properly  label  a 
test,  and  only  put  down  the  first  syllable  of  the 
name. 

On  the  chart  as  above  described  many  ex- 
periments can  be  made  that  are  usually  tried 
on  paintings,  with  the  resultant  creation  of 
bad  pictures.  A  fair  test  is  to  have  the  colors 
exposed  to  the  full  sunlight  for  about  eight 
months  (beginning  with  March)  in  an  inclosed 
space  that  receives  the  sunlight  for  at  least 
six  hours  each  day,  the  test  chart  to  be  pro- 
tected from  dust,  dirt,  and  moisture.  If  the 
colors  are  good,  they  will  get  more  clear  and 
brighter,  some  become  very  brilliant,  and  of 
course  as  the  oil  is  destroyed  they  get  lighter 
in  key,  but  this  lightness  is  nothing  at  all  like 
the  fading  out  of  a  fugitive  color.  Some  col- 
187 


THE  SECRET  OF  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

ors  become  much  darker,  some  only  a  trifle 
BO,  as,  for  instance,  vermilion.  Should  it,  how- 
ever, get  very  much  darker,  it  is  an  impure 
manufacture  or  adulterated.  A  bad  cadmium 
turns  a  distinct  greenish  tint,  and  a  good  cad- 
mium becomes  more  beautiful.  The  test  should 
also  be  applied  to  the  oils  and  varnishes  that 
are  to  be  used.  Each  artist  can  and  should  in 
this  way  test  the  colors  that  he  is  partial  to 
and  is  in  the  habit  of  using.  It  is  a  clean  way, 
does  not  require  any  appreciable  time,  and  is 
a  sure  test.  It  will  also  teach  him  how  beau- 
tiful some  are,  and  in  a  way  he  never  realized. 
I  am  quite  sure  in  my  own  mind  that  the 
Masters  tested  every  new  batch,  or  newly  dis- 
covered color,  in  this  way  with  Nature 's  chem- 
ist, the  sun.  No  matter  how  good  a  name  or 
certificate  of  character  a  color  has,  if  it  cannot 
stand  this  test,  it  should  be  rejected.  On  the 
other  hand,  if  a  color  has  a  bad  reputation, 
if  it  can  stand  this  test,  it  may  be  used.  If 
two  colors  do  not  agree,  this  method  soon 
shows  which  is  the  weaker  or  the  vicious.  This 
188 


DURABLE  COLORS 

method  of  testing  does  away  with  the  great  loss 
of  time  and  labor  of  grinding  and  preparing 
colors  in  the  studio,  which  otherwise  would 
be  a  necessity  as  a  protection  against  fraud 
or  carelessness. 


189 


CHAPTER   XIV 

RETOUCHING  AND  FINAL  VAENISH 

BEFORE  closing,  it  is  necessary  to  return  to 
the  subject  of  varnish  again.  A  retouching 
varnish  seems  sometimes  necessary  on  account 
of  the  varying  surface  caused  by  unequal  dry- 
ing of  overlapping  color.  Modern  artists  are 
in  the  habit  of  using  the  very-quick-drying 
alcohol  varnish.  I  regard  it  as  a  good  prin- 
ciple to  keep  all  vehicles  and  varnishes  as  much 
as  possible  out  of  the  painting  but  oil.  I  know 
that  the  burning-out  process  is  retarded,  and 
sometimes  stopped  altogether,  if  the  oil  paint 
is  under  a  varnish.  We  know  that  Titian 
used  a  varnish  at  "  certain  places,"  but  I  am 
strongly  inclined  to  think  it  was  only  an  oil 
slightly  thickened  in  the  sun  on  litharge,  and 
then  possibly  thinned  with  turpentine.  He 
190 


RETOUCHING  AND  FINAL  VARNISH 

may  have  used  it,  too,  as  a  glaze  or  veil.  In 
regard  to  the  final  varnish,  the  court  physician 
of  Charles  I  of  England,  Dr.  De  Meyern, 
claims  to  have  heard  Rubens  himself  say,  that 
an  "  oil  varnish,  only,  should  be  used,  as  it  is 
the  only  one  that  resists  moisture ;  and  that  he 
made  it  of  fine  linseed  oil,  much  thickened  in 
the  sun  on  litharge."  The  final  varnish,  of 
course,  should  be  very  thoroughly  "  sun- 
burned." I  have  before  stated,  that  even  if 
we  had  a  perfect  description  of  the  methods 
and  material  of  Titian  or  Rubens  we  could  not 
produce  a  Titian  or  a  Rubens  masterpiece,  nor 
can  we  by  the  aid  of  the  great  sun,  on  a  poorly 
constructed  picture,  make  an  Old  Master  of  it. 
One  recommendation  I  cannot  resist  making 
as  strong  as  possible,  for  several  reasons,  and 

that  is  the  use  of  a  white  palette  that  is 
The  White      .  .  •«       mt. 

Palette          impervious  to  oil.     The  first  reason  is 

that  the  tones  to  be  mixed  are  much 

more  easily  distinguished,  and  hence  a  lesser 

strain  on  the  eyes,  and  especially  is  this  the 

case  with  all  tones  from  the  lights  down.    The 

191 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD  MASTERS 

second  reason  is  that  the  dark,  transparent 
glazes  can  only  be  properly  judged  on  a  white 
palette.  The  white  palette  loses  some  of  its 
strong,  glaring  white  with  use,  and  so  be- 
comes still  more  valuable  by  becoming  nearer 
to  dead  coloring  of  flesh,  but  still  much  light- 
er and  with  no  tint  of  red  or  yellow,  and  thus 
permitting  an  instantaneous  judgment  of  the 
true  character  of  a  mixed  or  unmixed  tint.  It 
must  be  understood  that  the  palette  must  be 
kept  clean  or  its  use  as  a  white  palette  is  Of 
course  an  illusion.  The  final  reason  for  the  use 
of  a  white  palette  is  that  it  forces  and  leads  the 
artist  unconsciously  to  work  in  a  higher  key. 
Many  fine  painters  besides  Vibert  have  rec- 
ommended it.  I  have  in  my  humble  way  used 
it  many  years,  and  found  it  more  useful  and 
attractive  than  the  ordinary  brown  kind.  A 
well-equipped  painter  should  have  at  least 
three  palettes  of  different  sizes. 

I  want  to  pay  a  tribute  to  the  finest  portrait 
painted  in  accordance  with  the  Old  Masters' 
principles  by  an  American  that  I  have  ever 
192 


RETOUCHING  AND   FINAL   VAENISH 

seen.  It  is  the  full-length  portrait  of  Alexan- 
der Hamilton  painted  by  John  Trumbull,  one 
time  aide-de-camp  to  General  Washing- 
ton-  There  are  several  Trumbull  por- 
traits of  Hamilton,  but  the  one  I  refer  to 
is  that  in  the  New  York  City  Hall.  It  is  as 
fine  as  any  Van  Dyck,  and  painted  in  Trum- 
bull 's  best  manner,  after  he  had  been  abroad. 
Unfortunately,  about  fifty  years  ago  some  mis- 
creant cut  the  picture  with  a  knife  down  the 
center  from  about  halfway  from  the  top.  It 
has  been  relined  several  times,  but  of  course 
this  scar  will  always  show  more  or  less.  It  is 
such  a  wonderful  picture  that,  outside  of  its 
historical  interest  on  Hamilton's  account,  I 
think  the  picture  should  have  a  more  secure 
home,  like  the  New  York  Metropolitan  Mu- 
seum, secure  from  neglect  or  further  chance 
injury,  and  primarily  where  it  is  possible  to 
see  it  well  and  conveniently,  which  is  not  the 
case  now.  The  black-silk  clothes  are  painted 
in  first-class  style,  the  background  and  dra- 
pery are  beautiful  in  their  transparency,  the 
193 


THE  SECRET  OF   THE  OLD   MASTERS 

flesh  silvery,  the  whole  portrait  painted  in  a 
broad,  masterly  manner.  It  is  totally  distinct 
from  the  dry,  hard,  untransparent  manner  in 
which  he  painted  the  Washington  portraits. 
This  portrait  would  hold  its  own  if  placed  by 
the  side  of  Van  Dyck  's  ' '  Duke  of  Richmond, ' ' 
now  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum.  May  there 
be  many  more  like  it. 

"  Common  sense  "  is  necessary  as  one  of 
the  guides  in  all  human  affairs,  and  will  be 
found  very  important  in  the  production  of 
fine,  durable  pictures.  In  Munich,  in  times 
past,  an  Italian  colleague  had  the  habit  of 
painting  mostly  with  his  fingers.  He  did  it 
because,  he  said,  Titian  painted  thus.  It  is 
true  that  the  Palma-Boschini  description  says, 
that  "  in  finishing,  Titian  painted  as  much 
with  his  fingers  as  with  his  brushes."  But 
my  Italian  friend  failed  to  realize  in  the  re- 
motest degree  how  Titian  had  prepared  for 
that  final  stage  of  finishing!  It  is  needless 
to  say  his  painting  did  not  at  all  suggest  Ti- 
tian's technic.  His  mind  happened  to  grasp 
194 


RETOUCHING   AND   FINAL  VARNISH 

only   the  least  important   detail  of   a  prin- 
ciple. 

All  over  Italy  artists  are  still  painting  with 
their  fingers.  Many  young  art  students  are 
misled  by  this  and  other  descriptions  of  tech- 
nic.  Titian,  as  I  have  said,  was  fond  of  a  red 
veil  over  the  white  canvas.  In  fact,  he  used 
red  very  freely,  yet  was  always  able  to  keep 
this  risky  color  under  control.  The  Bolognese 
school,  seeing  this  red  in  Titian's  pictures,  im- 
mediately takes  up  the  idea  and  exaggerates  it 
beyond  all  reason.  They  thought  to  improve 
on  Titian,  and  instead  of  veiling  the  white 
ground  with  a  delicate,  transparent  red,  they 
made  a  dense  red  ground  of  bole  and  painted 
on  that,  with  the  result  that  all  work  so  painted 
was  in  time  destroyed  or  has  become  uninter- 
esting. I  have  tried  to  indicate  a  principle  in 
this  book,  and  not  lay  down  rules.  Art  is  no 
longer  art  when  it  is  shackled.  As  I  have  said 
before,  the  artist  must  always  feel  his  liberty, 
but  at  the  same  time  he  must  not  keep  on  work- 
ing with  his  eyes  closed  to  material  facts  and 
195 


THE  SECRET    OP  THE   OLD   MASTERS 

the  results.  Beginning  with  the  white  ground 
to  the  final  touch,  common  sense  dictates  the 
use  of  one  medium  as  far  as  possible,  and  that 
as  we  have  seen  should  be  the  finest  kind  of  oil. 
A  solid,  durable,  homogeneous  technic  is  only 
then  possible.  The  sunlight  must  do  the  real 
finishing. 

I  believe  I  have  already  made  plain  the 
necessity  for  a  dead  coloring  for  flesh.  The 
artist  may  find  it  opposed  to  his  temperament 
or  habits,  but  he  will  have  to  protect  his  work 
against  the  effect  of  time  in  some  way  that  has 
this  principle  for  its  basis.  The  reader  must 
bear  in  mind,  and  this  I  wish  to  make  em- 
phatic, that  the  sun  cannot  help  a  badly  con- 
structed picture;  as,  for  instance,  when  a 
light  picture  is  over  a  very  dark  ground,  or 
light,  cold,  colored  parts  over  dark,  warm  un- 
derpaint.  The  sun  will  surely  expose  the  dark. 
I  believe  that  Titian  on  rare  occasions  had  to 
change  the  pictorial  composition  of  a  picture 
even  when  he  had  nearly  finished.  The  method 
he  adopted  to  avoid  the  "  coming  through  " 
196 


RETOUCHING  AND  FINAL  VARNISH 

of  discarded  forms  was,  when  the  subject  per- 
mitted, to  paint  a  new,  thick  dead  color  over 
what  he  had,  and  then  proceed  as  before.  In 
this  way  there  was  hardly  any  likelihood  of 
the  "  coming  through  "  of  any  undesirable 
first  painting.  I  have  tried  to  use  such  words 
in  describing  my  meaning  as  would  be  intelli- 
gible to  the  greatest  number.  "While  even  a 
moderately  thick  tone  composed  of,  say,  white, 
red,  and  black  is  in  a  sense  transparent,  and 
if  used  thinly  is  more  so,  it  is  very  much  more 
transparent  if  the  white  is  left  out.  When 
semitransparent  tones  are  spoken  of,  it  means 
that  a  white  and  ochre,  or  other  heavy-bodied, 
light-keyed  color  is  a  part  of  the  tone  de- 
scribed, and  that  it  is  applied  quite  thinly. 
A  transparent  veil  is  made  of  very  much  me- 
dium and  a  very  small  quantity  of  one  or  two 
colors  of  thin,  dark  body,  like  raw  umber,  raw 
sienna,  ultramarine,  burnt  sienna,  the  mad- 
ders, bone  brown,  ivory  black,  etc.  The  colors 
having  the  smallest  subdivision  of  particles, 
like,  for  instance,  madders,  bone  brown,  ivory 
197 


THE  SECRET  OP  THE  OLD   MASTERS 

black,  burnt  terre  verte,  and  ultramarine,  etc., 
make  the  best  veils  or  stains. 

I  do  not  think  this  book  has  been  written  in 

vain.     I  believe  I  shall  make  many  converts 

to   the  theories  herein  set  forth    even 

Conclusion 

from  the  ranks  of  those  who  have  been 
painting  pictures.  I  hope  to  reach,  and  ex- 
pect to  influence  for  good,  that  great  mass  of 
new  blood  that  is  entering  the  ranks  of  the 
art  workers  every  year.  I  sincerely  hope,  too, 
this  work  will  be  as  the  solid  earth  in  their 
support  as  they  first  set  foot  on  the  threshold 
of  fame. 


(2) 


THE   END 


198 





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